Accounts on the NIH Helix systems are for the use of researchers in NIH intramural research programs.

User Responsibilities

The NIH Helix systems are for appropriate government use only

System resources are for the work-related use of authorized users only. In particular, Internet Relay Chat (IRC), Multiple User Dungeons (MUDs) and MOO are not considered appropriate use of NIH Helix system resources.

E-Mail

The NIH Office of Information Resources Management considers chain letters, holiday joke messages, and ads to be inappropriate activities, subject to disciplinary action, according to an OIRM policy memo.

Internet

The NIH Senior IRM Official released a policy memo on December 8, 1995 stating "use of the NIH Internet services is limited to activities that support the NIH mission," subject to disciplinary action including suspension.

World Wide Web

The NIH IRM Council released World Wide Web: NIH Guidance in December 1995. A cover letter states that ".users of NIH networks may create NIH Web pages that are clearly mission related, and do not violate the acceptable use policies of the systems or networks used to publish them." Policy guidelines comprise the bulk of the document.

Read the announcements!

Users are responsible for reading the system messages and announcements. Often these appear in the form of msgs on helix.nih.gov. Users who log into helix.nih.gov will see these automatically; those who only log onto other hosts should consider regularly invoking msgs remotely on helix. The following command (either on the command line or in your .login file on the non-helix host) can accomplish this.

rsh helix.nih.gov msgs -f

Account sharing among multiple users is strongly discouraged

Account sharing poses a security risk and introduces ambiguities into email and other services. User of shared accounts should not expect the same level of Staff software support offered to individual users.

Access to data and applications is implicitly restricted

Information belonging to another user may not be accessed, regardless of the degree of access control applied to it, without the explicit permission of the owner, unless the information is stored in a facility intended for general availability (such as an anonymous FTP or World Wide Web directory).

Be civil in your communications

Particular care must be taken in use of inter-user communication facilities such as electronic mail and USENET news. Use of these facilities to harass other users, send obscene messages, or perpetrate "chain letters" is a misuse of federal computing resources.