Terms of use

1. Introduction

The cloud services (hereinafter referred to as “services”) are provided by the National Infrastructures for Research and Technology (GRNET) to the academic and research community, in order to promote academic, educational and research aims. The distributed computing and network resources can be optimized in order to host services or for experimental purposes.

More specifically the following cloud services are provided:

~okeanos (https://okeanos.grnet.gr, https://okeanos-global.grnet.gr):
Cloud Service with end users in the academic and research community which includes the following subsystems: Cyclades, providing Virtual Desktop and pithos+ as a web storage.
ViMa (https://vima.grnet.gr):
Virtual Private Server (VPS) Service provided to GRNET peers for hosting of services.

2. Users

The services are addressed to the Greek Academic and Research community (students, professors, researchers etc).

3. Disallowed use

The services are available to beneficiaries in order to cover their wider educational, research and academic needs. The accounts created by beneficiaries of the services are personal. Distribution of accounts to third parties is prohibited. The direct or indirect use of the services in order to promote any kind of commercial aim is expressly prohibited as well as any use which violates by any means the laws and provisions in force.

Which is inappropriate, defamatory, illegal, or obscene.
Which infringes the patent, trademark, copyright, trade secrets or other proprietary rights of any party.
Which forwards pyramid schemes, chain letters or disturbing unsolicited messages or advertisements.
Which promotes and / or provides educational information with regard to illegal activities and / or promotes natural violence and / or damage against groups or persons.

The malicious use of the services for any kind of electronic attacks aiming to obstruct the use of the services itself or the use of third services, to take advantage of vulnerabilities, to have illegal access to the systems of third parties and to hack personal data is prohibited. More specifically but not exclusively:

It is prohibited to act in any manner which aims to inhibit and / or interrupt the function of the services and/or the servers and/or the networks which are connected to the services as well as to ignore the claims, the procedures, the policies or the regulation of the networks connected to the services.
It is prohibited to obstruct and/or inhibit any other user from appropriate use of the services.
It is prohibited to create user accounts through automated media or using false pretexts.
It is prohibited to share software which contains viruses, Trojan horses or corrupted software which aims to take advantage of vulnerabilities with the aim to attack electronically and to have illegal access to systems of third parties.
It is prohibited to use robot or spider applications or applications for search / recovery of a website or of other machines for the recovery or the creation of an index / directory of a part of the services or for the collection of information concerning users for any kind of disallowed purpose.
Port Scanning, Network Scanning, Denial of Service and Distributed Denial of Service attacks are prohibited.
It is prohibited to use the services for the creation of web pages in order to hack personal data or passwords.
It is prohibited to maintain an open relay (mail or proxy) server.
It is prohibited to maintain a TOR EXIT NODE.
It is prohibited to operate/maintain any game server, unless special permission has been given by the management team of the services for research/educational purposes.
It is prohibited to use, promote, assist or inform third parties with regard to the use of the services in any illegal manner or in a manner that infringes the terms of use.
It is prohibited to defame, insult, harass, persecute, threaten or in any other way to violate the legal rights (such as the right of privacy and the right of publicity) of third parties.
It is prohibited to delete any kind of indications of copyright, trademark or other intellectual property rights which are included in the services.

4. Copyright

All of the above is applied and in force solely for the legal content and only on condition that the use and publication of the content does not violate the law. The use and distribution of the content which violates the copyright of third parties violates also the present terms of use.

GRNET is not in any way responsible nor can control the existence of such rights. Consequently, GRNET considers that every user is a holder / owner of the aforesaid rights and guarantees – by accepting the present terms – that he/she has the necessary rights so that the use and publication of the content does not infringe the law and the relevant provisions.

5. Interruption or cancellation

In case of infringement of the terms of use of the services GRNET can revise, reexamine and / or cease providing its services to the infringing user and/ or withdraw the content which has been saved by him/her without any prior notice.

6. Privacy

In order for GRNET to provide its services without any impediments, GRNET can collect general statistical data regarding the flow and optimization / development of the network and computer resources of the infrastructure. GRNET does not have direct access, has no interest in and will not collect any specific data with regard to specific services which are hosted in virtual machines or by the final users of the hosted services. The information which will eventually be collected through the services by GRNET will be used according to the institutional framework in force in Greece and in the European Union.

This data can be used in order to monitor the function of the services, to improve the quality of its function, or for research purposes, and can be published or distributed to third parties after a prior appropriate elaboration so that personal data of the managers and / or of the final users are not disclosed. GRNET can disclose information regarding the use of virtual machines when it is demanded by the law and the competent services.

7. Software

If GRNET provides certain software to the user in order to use the services, the services will be used according to the license and terms of use which the user will be asked to accept in order to use the software. If he/she is not asked to accept some license of use or terms of use, GRNET provides the license to use the specific software only for the approved use of the services. GRNET may monitor automatically the version of the software which will be offered. This software may be upgraded, improved, and developed. In case of upgraded versions the user will be asked to accept the license and terms of use of the upgraded version.

The user (owner of one or more virtual machines) and only he/she bears responsibility to guard the license of use and to abide with the terms of the license of use of the software which he/she installs and performs in the virtual machines.

Microsoft Windows Operating System is not for sale or distribution to the users of the services; it can only be used as a part of the services. The transfer or use of the license that accompanies the virtual machines running Microsoft Operating System outside the service is prohibited.

8. Disclaim of the responsibility

GRNET does not bear any responsibility for the content and the data distributed through the services. The decision on the lawfulness of the content – data and / or the decision for the posting and distribution of specific content and data belongs exclusively to the user.

GRNET takes all necessary measures in order to prevent any abuse, arbitrariness, damage, content and data loss; however, GRNET does not warrant that such a possibility does not exist in any case and does not bear any responsibility in such an event. The users of the service must guard their own backups to deal with such incidents.

GRNET takes all necessary measures in order to achieve the greatest availability of the services; however, GRNET does not provide any availability warranty in any case such that it can be held accountable and/ or responsible for direct or indirect damages which are due to loss of the service for any time period.

GRNET can not be held accountable and / or responsible in any case whatsoever for the data and content loss distributed through the services as well as for any relevant damage. Moreover, GRNET does not guarantee nor bears any responsibility for the accuracy of the data and of the content available through its services.

Opinions expressed or texts published through the services do not represent in any case whatsoever official opinions of GRNET, which can not be held responsible for its content.

According to the law concerning personal data protection GRNET does not control or monitor in any way the content of the distributed information and of the distributed data, so GRNET disclaims any kind of responsibility for eventual distribution on its network, products, services or through which the ownership or distribution constitutes copyright infringement or other offence.

GRNET will make every possible effort towards the uninterrupted and reliable operation of the services. Notwithstanding, GRNET can cease providing the service and / or modify certain configurations of the services at any time without prior notification. The interruption of provision of the services automatically means the interruption of its use by its users without any right of indemnification.

9. Application of the terms

The present terms of use supersede any verbal or written prior arrangement or other contract, convention, agreement related to the service. Every user has the right to withdraw his / her consent to the terms of use, but if he/she does so, then GRNET will cease supplying the services.

The above terms of use are governed by Greek law and any dispute whatsoever regarding these terms of use will be resolved by the courts of law in Athens.