Durham University IT services regulations

[fanf]

Some amusing or odd features:

• Blasphemy and racism are forbidden, along with the usual porn. This probably covers some fortune(1) jokes.
• You can get permission to look at porn for research purposes, but there is no such exemption for reverse engineering software (so no software security research).
• You are not allowed to "access, download, store, or process" comercial spam, or anything that causes "annoyance, inconvenience, or needless anxiety".
• Durham ITS takes a cut of research grants which have provision for computing costs.
• Durham claims all "intellectual property" you create and must be involved in any commercial exploitation.
• For the purpose of these regulations, "any remote IT facilities are deemed to be [Durham] University IT facilities".

Comments

[edith-the-hutt.livejournal.com]

I thought that was usually worded along the lines of things which some members of the university may find offensive these days.

[pseudomonas.livejournal.com]

That sounds frighteningly arbitrary. I hope that there are at least get-out clauses for allowing quoting of racist material without endorsement.

[fanf]

Nope!

[naath.livejournal.com]

I guess no-one at Durham studies, say, WWII then, or the slave trade. Bummer for the history department really.