Rensselaer's varied computing environment provides superior educational advantages, and using your RCS account for non-educational purposes, such as keeping in touch with family and friends, is fine as long as you keep Rensselaer's Conditions of Use agreement in mind.
However, some students misuse their computer privileges and use the campus computing facilities with malicious intent. As a result, one of my roles as the RCS Postmaster is to investigate complaints of electronic mail forgery, harassment, chain mail, e-mail bombing, and other similar abuses of Rensselaer's computing privileges. These all violate the RCS Conditions of Use agreement, which you signed when you received your RCS computer account. (Additionally, please refer to the URL http://www.rpi.edu/web/comec for more information on the Electronic Citizenship policy.)
Chain mail involves someone sending a mail message to, say, twenty other people, with instructions that each of them in turn send the same message to twenty more people, and so on. Even so-called "worthwhile" requests to forward chain mail are ethics violations. Additionally, most of them are frauds. For example, you will undoubtedly see chain mail about children suffering from cancer wanting get well cards (this one is ten years old), or that the American Cancer Society will donate three cents per every header sent on via chain mail, or chain mail informing you of the "Good Times Virus," complete with an official-looking warning from some federal agency, etc.
We cannot emphasize strongly enough the unnecessary burden that sending chain mail places on the campus mail server resources. So please! If you ever receive chain mail from outside the university, "just say no," and delete it immediately. Contrary to common belief, nothing "bad" will happen to you if you delete the chain mail. And if you ever receive chain mail from inside the university, please forward the entire message, including the headers, to postmaster@rpi.edu.
(As a postscript to this, we gratefully acknowledge those Rensselaer students who already recognize their responsibility in this issue, as well as the risks of passing on chain mail, and who have voluntarily taken the exact course of action mentioned above by forwarding chain mail messages they've received along to the Postmaster. To those of you in this category, many thanks! And to the rest of our users, let these folks act as a good role model.)
Always remember to use your RCS account responsibly. For example, you should be very cautious about leaving yourself logged on to your RCS account, or leaving your computer unattended for even a few minutes. In the time it takes to go to the restroom, or run back to your dorm room to get a book, some other user could easily access your files, send a harassing message from your account, or perform a number of other "pranks" that could get you in trouble -- not the person who actually did it.
Academic Computing Services does not take these "innocent" pranks lightly, and reports such incidents involving the misuse of information technology to the Dean of Students. Some of these incidents lead to legal action; others result in campus disciplinary procedures. In any event, it's hardly worth risking your entire college education for the sake of playing a little joke on someone. Remember, as a computer user here at Rensselaer, you have access to a powerful computing environment, and as such, you have the obligation to use that environment responsibly.
If you receive a harassing message, please send a message to postmaster@rpi.edu as soon as possible after receiving the message.
If you have any questions, please direct electronic mail to postmaster@rpi.edu, or refer to the URL http://www.rpi.edu/Computing/Consulting/Email/pm.html. Thank you!
...The RCS Postmaster
Go to the table of contents.
Go to the Kiosk homepage.