The mission of CAE is to provide you with computing services, guidance, and resources to assist you in achieving excellence as an engineering professional. To complete this mission, CAE needs your cooperation and the cooperation of your fellow students. While this page provides several examples of unethical and/or illegal computer use, the list is not intended to be complete. However, with these examples and a little common sense, you can help yourself and your fellow students succeed at CAE. The fundamental ethical principles in using computers are:

• Do not interfere with the ability of others to use the computers.
• Do not use public property (such as CAE’s computers) for private gain.
• Do not commit fraud or theft.

Consequences for violating these principles vary from temporary suspension of your CAE account to expulsion from school to criminal prosecution. If your account is suspended, you must see the consultant manager (room 190 CAE) before your account will be restored. Interference It is obviously unethical to watch someone type in his or her password and then use that password to break into the account. In fact, when people leave themselves logged in, you should log them out and send a mail message asking them to be more careful next time. What is not obvious is that merely wasting people’s time is also unethical. People deserve to be able to make effective use of their time at CAE. For example,

• Do not use electronic mail to harass someone. If someone (even a spammer) asks you to send no further email, you must not reply and you must send that person no further email. (If you are the victim of electronic mail harassment, please send a message to helpdesk@cae.wisc.edu about the problem.)
• While it is possible to send mail messages to large groups of people, such as every graduate student in a department, you should not send messages to such groups unless nearly everyone in the group would be interested. In particular, do not mass email:
  • unauthorized questionnaires or announcements
  • membership campaigns for groups not authorized by CAE
  • political campaign messages
  • solicitations of any kind: products, services, or donations
  • messages which are derogatory or may be offensive to any group
• Do not send “chain letter” messages that ask the recipient to mail additional copies onto to others. If you receive one of these messages, please forward it to: postmaster
• Do not post irrelevant messages to news groups. News group messages should be related to the purpose of the news group.
• Do not remotely log into a remote workstation that is in use and run a large program such as Mentor Graphics. The person sitting at the workstation has priority and should be able to run large programs.
• Do not run background jobs on remote workstations except as described at http://www.cae.wisc.edu/knowledge-base/cache/216.html. Again, this could interfere with the ability of the person at the workstation to complete his or her work quickly.
• Extended remote logins to CAE workstations for the purpose of running programs are considered background jobs. Running jobs from the console of a workstation for more than 8 hours is also considered a background job.
• Do not reserve a workstation by placing a sign on it or by locking it. You must be seated in front of the workstation. You may not sleep in a CAE lab. Log off when you go to eat. You may not be simultaneously logged into more than one workstation. Some rules may be modified by the department for specific target labs.
• Do not interfere with other people’s screens. It is possible to make other people’s screens change color or to make things appear or disappear on the screens. It is possible, but not ethical.
• CAE reserves the right to require that machines be used for course work only.
• Do not play games on CAE’s laboratory computers. Game playing is hard on the equipment and makes a bad impression on visitors. You may not play games at all.
• Do not turn a Windows-NT or Unix workstation off and on again. That destroys the work of any remote users and disables the workstation. If a Windows-NT or Unix workstation stops working, please tell the consultant (2-5349) and move to another workstation.
• Do not damage a computer or reformat its disk.

Do not display pictures on your screen or via your World-Wide-Web pages that may offend visitors or other students. Many deans and company representatives walk through CAE’s labs. It is important that CAE labs and classrooms be places where everyone can feel comfortable. Be thoughtful about others’ sensitivities. Do not bring food, drink or drink containers to any CAE workstation. Crumbs and spilled drinks are a danger to the computers. Do not try to fix a printer problem on your own. Call the consultant at 2-5349. Do not put your own paper in a printer. Personal Gain If you have something to sell, you may post an article to a news group such as uwisc.forsale or misc.forsale.computers with “forsale” in its name. You may also send email messages to your personal friends. Otherwise, you should not use CAE’s computers to advertise anything. For example, if you had hockey tickets you could not use, you could send email messages to your personal friends to try to sell them. However, you should not send such a message to anyone other than your personal friends. Contracting with an organization outside of the College of Engineering to do some computing and then using CAE’s computers to carry out the contract on your student account is unethical and illegal. Have the organization contact CAE (or DoIT) about purchasing computer time. Fraud and Theft Do not let other people use your account; do not log in as someone other than yourself; do not use a computer logged in as someone else. There are other ways to share files--see CAE’s handouts and Sharing Files. CAE needs to make sure that only authorized people use the facilities. Be careful not to violate the copyright laws when using the scanner or creating World-Wide-Web pages. See the “Fair Use” article posted near the scanners in room 170. Here are a few other fraud and theft examples that should be truly obvious. For those who violate any of these, their account is immediately suspended and the case is referred to the Office of the Dean of Students and possibly the District Attorney for further action.

• Do not send email messages pretending to be someone else.
• Do not make copies of CAE’s software (except for public domain, freeware, or shareware software).
• Do not steal CAE’s computers, computer parts, manuals, etc.
• Do not use password cracking programs.
• Do not attempt to obtain computer network privileges to which you are not entitled.
• Do not read other people’s files without permission.
• Do not destroy or modify other people’s files without permission.
• Do not install a virus, worm, or “Trojan Horse” program on CAE’s computers.
• Do not deliberately crash CAE’s computers or network.

Further Information See the Appropriate Usage page for the University's Guidelines for Appropriate Use of University of Wisconsin-Madison Information Technology Resources. Back to top