General Acceptable Use Policy

This Acceptable Use Policy ("AUP") specifies the actions prohibited to users of the network and systems ("infrastructure") of Sentech and is intended to enhance the use of the Internet by preventing unacceptable use. Users are required to adhere to all the policies specified in this AUP without exception.

Lawful Use of Resources

Sentech 's users agree not to use Sentech's facilities for any unlawful purpose.  Users may not violate any applicable laws or regulations of South Africa within the territory of South Africa. Should the user reside outside of South Africa, the laws of the country in which the user resides shall apply.
Transmission, distribution or storage of any material o­n or through the infrastructure, in violation of any applicable law or regulation is prohibited. This includes, without limitation, material protected by copyright, trademark, trade secret or other intellectual property right used without proper authorisation, and material that is obscene, defamatory, constitutes an illegal threat, or violates export control laws.

The Network

1. The user acknowledges that Sentech is unable to exercise control over the content of the information passing over the infrastructure and the Internet, including any websites, electronic mail transmissions, news groups or other material created or accessible over its infrastructure. Therefore, Sentech is not responsible for the content of any messages or other information transmitted over its infrastructure.
2. Sentech's infrastructure may be used to link into other networks worldwide and the user agrees to conform to the acceptable use policies of these networks.
3. The user may obtain and download any materials marked as available for download off the Internet but is not permitted to use its Internet access to distribute any copyrighted materials unless the owner of the materials grants permission for such distribution to the user.
4. The user is prohibited from obtaining and/or disseminating o­n-line any unlawful materials, including but not limited to stolen intellectual property, child pornography, and/or any unlawful hate-speech materials.

System and Network Security

1. All references to systems and networks under this section includes the Internet (and all those systems and/or networks to which user is granted access through Sentech) and includes but is not limited to the infrastructure of Sentech itself.
2. The user may not circumvent user authentication or security of any host, network, or account (referred to as "cracking" or "hacking"), nor interfere with service to any user, host, or network (referred to as "denial of service attacks").
3. Violations of system or network security by the user are prohibited, and may result in civil or criminal liability. Sentech will investigate incidents involving such violations and will involve and will co-operate with law enforcement officials if a criminal violation is suspected. Examples of system or network security violations include, without limitation, the following:
4. Unauthorised access to or use of data, systems or networks, including any attempt to probe, scan or test the vulnerability of any system or network or to breach security or authentication measures without the express authorisation of Sentech.
5. Unauthorised monitoring of data or traffic o­n the network or systems without express authorisation of Sentech.
6. Interference with service to any user, host or network including, without limitation, mail bombing, flooding, deliberate attempts to overload a system and broadcast attacks.
7. Forging of any TCP-IP packet header (spoofing) or any part of the header information in an email or a newsgroup posting.

Complaints

1. Inform the user's network administrator of the incident and require the network administrator or network owner to deal with the incident according to this AUP.
2. In the case of individual users suspend the user's account and withdraw the user's network access privileges completely.
3. Charge the offending parties for administrative costs as well as for machine and human time lost due to the incident.
4. In severe cases suspend access of the user's entire network until abuse can be prevented by appropriate means.
5. Share information concerning the incident with other Internet access providers, or publish the information, and/or make available the users' details to law enforcement agencies.

Sentech may take any o­ne or more of the steps listed above, in so far as Sentech deems them necessary in its absolute and sole discretion, against the offending party. All cases of violation of the above Acceptable Use Policy should be reported to abuse@sentech.co.za