Rules of Use

This document is a short list of Panix Rules. Any user of Panix must follow them. In fact, they're nothing new or strange -- they're the same rules we've had for the last five years.

They are intended to protect us, our users, and the Net. Unfortunately, to provide any sort of real protection, they have to sound rather harsh and unfriendly. Typically, the vast majority of users will never even come close to a situation where these rules will affect them.

We have tried to keep our regulations to a minimum, so these are the ones that must be obeyed. Failure to comply may result in immediate termination of your account without refund. Please do not try to be creative about circumventing our rules. We're generally nice folks with an excellent reputation for being reasonable; if you have a problem with them, bring it to us.

Remember this:

You are responsible for your account. This means that we expect you to maintain a reasonable degree of security and not to share your password or leave it where others can make use of it. Unless we have some reason to believe that your account has been broken into by means essentially beyond your control, we have to hold you responsible for anything done under your login or from your dialup-IP host.

1. Do anything illegal or anything that adversely affects Panix's legal interests.
2. Share your password with anyone or allow anyone else to use your personal use account except in your immediate presence, nor login more than once at a time on your personal account.
3. Tamper with other accounts, or commit unauthorized intrusion into any part of Panix's system or use any of Panix's machines, files or accounts to intrude without authorization into any other system (cracking).
4. Use Panix services not included in your subscription or devise ways to circumvent security so you have access to services you haven't paid for (theft of services).
5. Use the system (willfully or negligently) in a manner that encumbers disk space, processors or other system resources so as to interfere with others' normal use of services on Panix or on other systems (a "denial of services" attack).
6. Create or participate in chain letters or pyramid schemes.
7. Harass users (on Panix or elsewhere). Sending email or real-time messages to a user who has asked explicitly and unambiguously that you not do this is harassment. In some cases, a harassing user may be warned against engaging in similar behavior with other users as well. Publishing someone's real-world data (phone number, address, social security number, etc.) in a newsgroup or on the web, etc. in such a way as to cause the person trouble or to incite others to do so (even if you don't do it yourself) is also forbidden. (Establishing that the information you published is available, say, in a phone book somewhere does not constitute a defense of this kind of harassment.)

   The following rules pertain specifically to netnews postings. If you never use netnews, they don't apply to you.

8. Spam the net with commercial or non-commercial postings.
9. Maliciously or wantonly flood newsgroups.

We reserve the right to amend these rules without prior notice. We will keep a current copy of the rules in the Help System (System Help from the menu) for users to reference. (We tend not to make many changes, and when we do we generally make them known by posting them in panix.announce and/or in the system messages-of-the-day (MOTDs).)