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MCC Daily Tribune Archive

Computer Use and Misuse


To: The College Community


On February 19, 2003, DCC's email system was shut down for several hours. After an investigation, ETS staff concluded that the problem was caused by an employee's misuse of our network.

The employee had downloaded music files and was transmitting them via email to a personal account. The file size was 1,000,000,000 bytes - equivalent to 500,000 email messages!

Not only did this misuse of the computer system disable the DCC email system, it inconvenienced all DCC employees, impacted college operations and required considerable effort by ETS employees to detect the problem and resolve it.

MCC has a code of conduct for computer users. It can be found on our web site at www.monroecc.edu <https://www.monroecc.edu> and in the College Catalog and Student Handbook on Page 207. I encourage you to read it and become familiar with it.

There are several points to consider about this misuse of our computer system:

1. It was disrespectful of our college and our colleagues.

2. It is illegal. Various federal laws make the downloading of copyrighted music and videos a crime. An employee who engages in this practice may be prosecuted and may be placing MCC in jeopardy as well.

3. It sets a bad example for our students. Our Faculty Senate is engaged in a Respect, Responsibility, Reality campaign. We insist our students be respectful of our college policies and procedures. We must insist that our employees do also.

In conclusion, I ask each of us to examine our use of college computing resources in light of the college's code of conduct for computer users.

Let's all be respectful of our college, our colleagues and the law.

R. Thomas Flynn
President's Office
03/07/2003