Acceptable Use Policy

Network Policy

Although DarkMyst attempts to be fairly liberal in what is allowed and what isn’t, there are some things which are not permitted. Any activities which harm the fabric of the network and any actions deemed illegal will be dealt with severely. These things are, but not limited to:

• Abuse of network resources (servers, services, mailing lists, website etc.)
• Harassment of individuals; whether users or staff
• Ban evasion; whether it be network bans or community (channel)  bans
• Spam or Unsolicited Advertising of any kind
• Communities (channels) supporting illegal distribution of copyrighted materials
• Child pornography or content of a criminally abusive nature
• Connection-spamming or join-spamming (Repeated connects/joins to flood communities (channels) or DoS)
• Impersonation of a Staff member

We are required BY LAW to report any illegal activities to the appropriate authority and will have no hesitation to do so, DarkMyst is bound by and respects the laws of various jurisdictions including (but not limited to) United Kingdom, Germany, Finland, Holland, Singapore, EU and various US states.

DarkMyst is a privately owned and operated network run by volunteers. The DarkMyst Network reserves the right to deny anyone access to the network at any time.

Security Measures
DarkMyst restricts access to the network in several ways to ensure good security against malicious and/or irritating users.

• Connection Limits
  By default DarkMyst allows up to 4 concurrent connections to the network from the same source IP address. Any additional connections will only be accepted with an exemption. To request an exemption, ask the support staff in #help.
• Proxy Scanning
  DarkMyst may scan connecting machines searching for open proxies in an attempt to prevent abuse. The port scanning may appear to a firewall as being a malicious attack; this is not the case as the probes sent from DarkMyst’s servers are completely harmless.
• Host Blacklisting
  DarkMyst checks connecting machines against several trusted blacklists to ensure known malicious hosts are prevented from connecting. Sometimes there are false positives and this may prevent legitimate users from connecting. In such cases send an e-mail to support@darkmyst.net to report the problem.

Complaint Resolution
Complaints against users of harassment or abuse should be directed to the staff in #help with complete logs. In most cases the following advice will be given:

• Use of IGNORE and SILENCE commands as appropriate to block messages from the abusive individual from displaying on screen
• That logs are kept as they may be useful for taking any complaints further (i.e. complaints to ISPs)

Note that community (channel) operations are at the discretion of their staff; DarkMyst network staff will not assist with allegations of “unfair bans” by community (channel) staff.

Complaints against staff should be directed to Suzthulhu, Keiro, Vecna, or Ryan in private with full logs, do NOT complain about DarkMyst staff publicly as this may be misinterpreted as a personal attack and result in a ban.

Contesting Network Bans
To contest a network-wide ban, send an e-mail to support@darkmyst.net with all relevant details such as IP, nickname and the error message(s) received.