This model works for large ISP's but creates a problem for all the smaller companies out there running their own email servers. I would object to having to relay all my email through the major providers for good reasons.
You don't have to relay any mail. Just ask you ISP for Certification. They Certify your server, and you can send all the mail you want without relaying a piece.
Personally I feel that a good way to get arid of spam is to have a central authority with a white list. You have to pay a fee to be on the list. It can't be free. Tax the spammers and you put them out of business. You spam you get delisted if proven and you don't fix it. Everything not on the whitelist gets rejected.
That might very well be what happens- Certain certifiers are known to be reliable, and they are added to a whitelist. (A certified list of Certifiers.) Any email server they certify is considered 'good'. Newcomers to the Cerification game would have to have a proven track record (say, one year with no complaints) before they are added.
Problem is with people having figured ways around captcha, public email providers like hotmail and gmail are always going to be a source of some spam.
With Certification, people can report spam with the click of a button. If google/yahoo/hotmail don't figure out how to stop spamer accounts, then they risk getting their certs pulled, and no one will get their user's emails. Thus, their users will leave, and they will go out of business. OR, they can come up with a better way to stop spammers. Either way, we win!
Want to run a Certified Email server? Go to your ISP (or other such companies that may arise to offer the service). They check you out (Are you who you say you are? Do you have valid contact information? Etc...), then have you produce a Public/Private key pair. You give them the 'Public' key, and keep the 'Private' one to configure your email server with. Your email server must add an additional header with your Certifier's Certification Server (usually their email server), and a header that is encrypted with your Private key.
An email client that is Certification-compatible will, when it receives an email, look to see if it has those two headers. If not, it will handle it according to the user's wishes. This means NON-Certified email might be deleted, or sent to a different folder, or whatever. Whitelists/blacklists are still possible.
If the email has the headers, the email client will connect to the Certification Server listed in the one header, and download the 'Public' key to attempt to decrypt the other header. If the decrypted header is valid, the client treats the email the way it is configured to, usually by placing it in the Inbox. Again, whitelists and blacklists can still be used.
Here's the most important part: If the user receives Spam that is Certified, they can easily report it to the Certifier (email clients would have a 'Report Certified Spam' button that automatically shoots an email off to the Certifier, for instance). The Certifier can then contact the owner of the Certified Server and notify them of the spam. This gives the server owner a chance to stop the spam, in case the server was hacked or the spam was accidental. If the Server owner does not stop the spam, the Certifier simply pulls the Certification, by removing the 'Public' key on their server. From that moment forward, ALL email the Email server in question sends will be NON-certified (and quite frankly, probably deleted by the recipients).
If the Certifier refuses to do anything about the Spamming Server (because they are 'in on it', friendly to spammers, or just incompetent), then ALL Certifications from that Certifier can be marked as 'bad', either on a client-by-client basis, or thru the use of a Certifier black-list.
-There is no 'Central Authority'- your ISP Certifies you for a modest fee. -You can still send non-certified email, so hobby mailing lists and the like are not affected- the people who receive the mailing list might just need to whitelist it. -Legit email will (eventually, almost always) be Certified, so Certified emails can be sent straight to the Inbox. Non-certified email will (eventually, almost always) be spam, so it can be trashed. -Any spam that is sent from a Certified server will quickly be reported by pissed-off recipients, and quick action will be needed to avoid that Certifier (and ALL the servers it has certified) from being put on a blacklist. -Spam will dwindle as Spammers either move to 'spam-friendly' Certifiers (which are blacklisted so the spam never gets thru anyway), or will spend huge amounts of money switching ISPs every 2-3 days to get re-certified over and over. Of course, ISPs could take a clue from the Las Vegas Casinos, and keep a 'black book' of known spammers, and check new clients against them before Certifying them. -This system does not need to be adopted all at once. Certified and non-certified emails can be handled both by email clients that are Certification aware and not.
The real problem with most slippery slope (and frog-boiling) arguments is that they essentially try to pass of hyperbole as a legitimate argument.
That's true, IF there is no further evidence. If I can show 15 examples of situations where 'A' lead to 'B', and in 14 of those cases, 'B' lead to 'C', then I'd be pretty correct to say it's possible, even likely, that 'A' leads to 'C'.
In either case, the RIAA are not distributing your recording, and thus are not breaching copyright law, so you do not have a case against them for copyright infringement or piracy.
IF I "distribute" their shit when I BT it, then they "distribute" my shit when they BT it.
Right, then you are actually breaching both the terms and spirit of copyright law and there is a valid case against you. Don't moan when you get caught.
If I can't get the type or quality veggies at the local supermarket at reasonable prices, then I'll go to a different store. Or I'll go to the Farmers Market. Or I'll grow them myself. I might even end up buying some that 'fell off a truck' from a guy in an alley.
If the local supermarket wants my business, then they should lower their prices, not sue me. And certainly not get my car registration revoked.
If the RIAA/MPAA wants my business, then they should lower their prices, not sue me. And certainly not get my internet access revoked.
Then you sue your friend for distribution of your copyrighted recording. It still has nothing to do with the RIAA. The fact that they download a song, regardless of who they get it from, does not make them guilty of distribution. The uploader is the one who potentially violates copyright (either you or your friend).
Then they can't use the fact that I download a song to get my internet access cut off.
The fact is, both BitTorrent and P2P programs like emule (or whatever) both Download AND Upload at the same time. SO, if they are downloading the file, they are most likely uploading it, too. Unless they hacked the program to not upload anything, which probably violates the copyright of the program's creator. And, of course, if they don't bother to DL the file at all, but just go by the filename, then a case could be made on that, as well.
In either case, the RIAA are not distributing your recording, and thus are not breaching copyright law, so you do not have a case against them for copyright infringement or piracy.
IF I "distribute" their shit when I BT it, then they "distribute" my shit when they BT it.
Right, then you are actually breaching both the terms and spirit of copyright law and there is a valid case against you. Don't moan when you get caught.
If I can't get the type or quality veggies at the local supermarket at reasonable prices, then I'll go to a different store. Or I'll go to the Farmers Market. Or I'll grow them myself. I might even end up buying some that 'fell off a truck' from a guy in an alley.
If the local supermarket wants my business, then they should lower their prices, not sue me. And certainly not get my car registration revoked.
If the RIAA/MPAA wants my business, then they should lower their prices, not sue me. And certainly not get my internet access revoked.
No they don't, they simply have to prove that your peer transferred a significant portion of the file to another peer - that is still distribution under Copyright Law, and enough of a case against you to procede to court under.
So I have my friend (who has a different IP from me) seed the file.
Sheesh.
if you don't like the copyright terms, or the licensing terms, avoid that content and find something else.
I prefer putting it this way: If I don't like the the way content is offered (price, ads, DRM, etc), I avoid that channel and find a different way to get that content (p2p, BT, etc).
I don't get why people think this would work, for the simple reason that *you* are distributing the recording of yourself, and thus you cannot claim piracy on the RIAA, or anyone else for that matter, for downloading from yourself.
They would need to prove I was the one to seed that file.
The typical method that they use is to connect to the tracker and get a list of the clients who are sharing the file(s) in question. It doesn't matter if your client is running encryption or not -- they are going to find out that your IP address is sharing this file. The only solution for this is private trackers.
Or proxy connections. I see a new type of BT program. In addition to connecting to a 'file tracker', it also connects to a 'proxy tracker' (both probably the same machine). Your BT program offers one or more proxy connections, and takes advantage of an equal number of proxy connections offered by other users. Yes, this will use more bandwidth, but who really uses all their bandwidth anyway? If the RIAA/MPAA comes calling, simply point out that you offer proxy connections to others, and that you'd be ever-so-happy to pass on their notice to the real infringers, but golly-gee, you don't keep logs.
"The heart of the slippery slope fallacy lies in abusing the intuitively appreciable transitivity of implication, claiming that A lead to B, B leads to C, C leads to D and so on, until one finally claims that A leads to Z. While this is formally valid when the premises are taken as a given, each of those contingencies needs to be factually established before the relevant conclusion can be drawn. Slippery slope fallacies occur when this is not done -- an argument that supports the relevant premises is not fallacious and thus isn't a slippery slope fallacy."
In other words, Slippery Slope is only a fallacy if you assume (with no further evidence) that 'A' must inevitably lead to 'Z'. If you have evidence that supports each step of the way, it isn't a logical fallacy.
Besides, most people using the Slippery Slope argument are using a 'worst case' scenario to show what MIGHT happen, not what necessarily WILL happen. It makes sense to avoid scenarios where bad things can happen. (ie: wear your seatbelt, or if you get in an accident, you could get thrown out of the car and die. Using that argument doesn't mean you WILL get in an accident, or that you WILL die if you get in one, but rather that it is a possibility, and because of the severity of the results, it is good to avoid scenarios with such possibilities.)
A part of the problem is that it's difficult and expensive to store electricity to move a vehicle. This hasn't been solved yet, though there have been some improvements.
To me the solution that looks best is some development of the super-capacitor. It might not work, but it looks very promising. And if it does it would allow an essentially unlimited number of fast charge-discharge cycles.
I say use a liquid. Use nuclear/wind/solar/hydro-power to make a sort of 'artificial gasoline'. If possible, make this liquid be compatible with regular gas- that way you can mix them together as needed (kinda like ethanol).
This takes advantage of the currently existing infrastructure such as Gas stations (with their underground tanks, pumps, and hoses/nozzles, etc), tanker trucks, pipelines, etc. AND it lets people who are already aware of the proper handling and care of liquid fuel continue to use and handle a familiar substance.
No capacitors, no batteries, no pressurized gas canisters needed.
1) Whole numbers (and therefore easier to remember and work with) 2) 2 characters long
While "22.0" (Actually 22.22) and "22.5" (actually 22.78) are twice as long, and one is a fraction, making them harder to write, remember, and work with.
I had a similar idea years ago- when your bt client connects to a file tracker, it also connects to a 'proxy tracker' (which may or may not be the same server as the file tracker). Your client offers one or more 'proxy connections', and can take advantage of the same number of other people's proxies.
The point is they wouldn't have left before the cops got there, the cops were waiting and could've gone in at any moment from the time they walked out of the first shop.
SO, the cops stood by and LET them steal from store after store after store, instead of arresting them after the first one? If I was one of the other stores that also got robbed, I'd be pissed. What would have happened if the crooks had caused damage, or (god forbid) hurt someone? The police would have been liable.
They overstayed their welcome, so to speak. What would have happened if they left before the cops got there? The crime is on tape, but there are no suspects. Only some grainy footage that most likely is too poor quality to ID the perps.
Cops don't catch crooks because cops are smart, they catch crooks because crooks are dumb.
However, if you were to draw 1000 gal/m from that water pipe all day every day, you would:
a) pay out the ass for the usage b) be asked by the water company to try to limit your consumption, since the water is a finite resource.
a) Not if I was sold an 'unlimited' usage plan. b) there are buildings/companies/industries that use WAY ore than that much water. When was the last time you heard of a water company cutting them off?
On on hand, the gym membership example is not applicable because the finite resources we are talking about are not the same. In the terms of a gym membership, it is possible to put more machines in, and there are several different machines.
And it is possible for the ISP to increase it's upstream bandwidth ('put in more machines'). It's also possible to use multiple frequencies and/or break up large areas covered by one headend into smaller areas ('several different machines').
But that would cost money. And god forbid the executives take home a measly 9.9 gajillion dollars instead of the full 10.
The "my WiFi network was open" defense has even been raised in the context of filesharing. If I have an open WAP, the reasoning goes, then no one can pin the file-sharing on me. That's a risky strategy, due in no small part to the recording industry's reliance on IP addresses to identify its targets. You may be able to demonstrate down the line that it actually was someone else downloading The Carpenters' Greatest Hits over your open network, but doing so may prove to be a very expensive proposition.
...So, it's "risky" because the RIAA relies just on IPs to ID the sharer. Of course, a successful defense on this point would blow that out of the water.
Slashdot Mirror
This model works for large ISP's but creates a problem for all the smaller companies out there running their own email servers. I would object to having to relay all my email through the major providers for good reasons.
You don't have to relay any mail. Just ask you ISP for Certification. They Certify your server, and you can send all the mail you want without relaying a piece.
Personally I feel that a good way to get arid of spam is to have a central authority with a white list. You have to pay a fee to be on the list. It can't be free. Tax the spammers and you put them out of business. You spam you get delisted if proven and you don't fix it. Everything not on the whitelist gets rejected.
That might very well be what happens- Certain certifiers are known to be reliable, and they are added to a whitelist. (A certified list of Certifiers.) Any email server they certify is considered 'good'. Newcomers to the Cerification game would have to have a proven track record (say, one year with no complaints) before they are added.
Problem is with people having figured ways around captcha, public email providers like hotmail and gmail are always going to be a source of some spam.
With Certification, people can report spam with the click of a button. If google/yahoo/hotmail don't figure out how to stop spamer accounts, then they risk getting their certs pulled, and no one will get their user's emails. Thus, their users will leave, and they will go out of business.
OR, they can come up with a better way to stop spammers.
Either way, we win!
And you'd get blacklisted again and again.
What are the startup costs for an ISP again?
I've said it before- Email Certification.
Want to run a Certified Email server? Go to your ISP (or other such companies that may arise to offer the service). They check you out (Are you who you say you are? Do you have valid contact information? Etc...), then have you produce a Public/Private key pair. You give them the 'Public' key, and keep the 'Private' one to configure your email server with. Your email server must add an additional header with your Certifier's Certification Server (usually their email server), and a header that is encrypted with your Private key.
An email client that is Certification-compatible will, when it receives an email, look to see if it has those two headers. If not, it will handle it according to the user's wishes. This means NON-Certified email might be deleted, or sent to a different folder, or whatever. Whitelists/blacklists are still possible.
If the email has the headers, the email client will connect to the Certification Server listed in the one header, and download the 'Public' key to attempt to decrypt the other header. If the decrypted header is valid, the client treats the email the way it is configured to, usually by placing it in the Inbox. Again, whitelists and blacklists can still be used.
Here's the most important part: If the user receives Spam that is Certified, they can easily report it to the Certifier (email clients would have a 'Report Certified Spam' button that automatically shoots an email off to the Certifier, for instance). The Certifier can then contact the owner of the Certified Server and notify them of the spam. This gives the server owner a chance to stop the spam, in case the server was hacked or the spam was accidental. If the Server owner does not stop the spam, the Certifier simply pulls the Certification, by removing the 'Public' key on their server. From that moment forward, ALL email the Email server in question sends will be NON-certified (and quite frankly, probably deleted by the recipients).
If the Certifier refuses to do anything about the Spamming Server (because they are 'in on it', friendly to spammers, or just incompetent), then ALL Certifications from that Certifier can be marked as 'bad', either on a client-by-client basis, or thru the use of a Certifier black-list.
-There is no 'Central Authority'- your ISP Certifies you for a modest fee.
-You can still send non-certified email, so hobby mailing lists and the like are not affected- the people who receive the mailing list might just need to whitelist it.
-Legit email will (eventually, almost always) be Certified, so Certified emails can be sent straight to the Inbox. Non-certified email will (eventually, almost always) be spam, so it can be trashed.
-Any spam that is sent from a Certified server will quickly be reported by pissed-off recipients, and quick action will be needed to avoid that Certifier (and ALL the servers it has certified) from being put on a blacklist.
-Spam will dwindle as Spammers either move to 'spam-friendly' Certifiers (which are blacklisted so the spam never gets thru anyway), or will spend huge amounts of money switching ISPs every 2-3 days to get re-certified over and over. Of course, ISPs could take a clue from the Las Vegas Casinos, and keep a 'black book' of known spammers, and check new clients against them before Certifying them.
-This system does not need to be adopted all at once. Certified and non-certified emails can be handled both by email clients that are Certification aware and not.
It may not be perfect, but it'd be a good start.
Thus, there is, in fact, a legal, logical use for such items.
And there are no legal, logical uses for a VPN??
The real problem with most slippery slope (and frog-boiling) arguments is that they essentially try to pass of hyperbole as a legitimate argument.
That's true, IF there is no further evidence. If I can show 15 examples of situations where 'A' lead to 'B', and in 14 of those cases, 'B' lead to 'C', then I'd be pretty correct to say it's possible, even likely, that 'A' leads to 'C'.
And thats my point - if you dislike the terms of the sale, actually go elsewhere!
I do. I don't buy the carrots, I walk out of the shop, around to the back alley where someone else is offering carrots. I get them from him.
You contention that I should eat rutabaga instead is... silly.
Damn Italics tags.
In either case, the RIAA are not distributing your recording, and thus are not breaching copyright law, so you do not have a case against them for copyright infringement or piracy.
IF I "distribute" their shit when I BT it, then they "distribute" my shit when they BT it.
Right, then you are actually breaching both the terms and spirit of copyright law and there is a valid case against you. Don't moan when you get caught.
If I can't get the type or quality veggies at the local supermarket at reasonable prices, then I'll go to a different store. Or I'll go to the Farmers Market. Or I'll grow them myself. I might even end up buying some that 'fell off a truck' from a guy in an alley.
If the local supermarket wants my business, then they should lower their prices, not sue me. And certainly not get my car registration revoked.
If the RIAA/MPAA wants my business, then they should lower their prices, not sue me. And certainly not get my internet access revoked.
Then you sue your friend for distribution of your copyrighted recording. It still has nothing to do with the RIAA. The fact that they download a song, regardless of who they get it from, does not make them guilty of distribution. The uploader is the one who potentially violates copyright (either you or your friend).
Then they can't use the fact that I download a song to get my internet access cut off.
The fact is, both BitTorrent and P2P programs like emule (or whatever) both Download AND Upload at the same time. SO, if they are downloading the file, they are most likely uploading it, too. Unless they hacked the program to not upload anything, which probably violates the copyright of the program's creator. And, of course, if they don't bother to DL the file at all, but just go by the filename, then a case could be made on that, as well.
In either case, the RIAA are not distributing your recording, and thus are not breaching copyright law, so you do not have a case against them for copyright infringement or piracy.
IF I "distribute" their shit when I BT it, then they "distribute" my shit when they BT it.
Right, then you are actually breaching both the terms and spirit of copyright law and there is a valid case against you. Don't moan when you get caught.
If I can't get the type or quality veggies at the local supermarket at reasonable prices, then I'll go to a different store. Or I'll go to the Farmers Market. Or I'll grow them myself. I might even end up buying some that 'fell off a truck' from a guy in an alley.
If the local supermarket wants my business, then they should lower their prices, not sue me. And certainly not get my car registration revoked.
If the RIAA/MPAA wants my business, then they should lower their prices, not sue me. And certainly not get my internet access revoked.
No they don't, they simply have to prove that your peer transferred a significant portion of the file to another peer - that is still distribution under Copyright Law, and enough of a case against you to procede to court under.
So I have my friend (who has a different IP from me) seed the file.
Sheesh.
if you don't like the copyright terms, or the licensing terms, avoid that content and find something else.
I prefer putting it this way: If I don't like the the way content is offered (price, ads, DRM, etc), I avoid that channel and find a different way to get that content (p2p, BT, etc).
I don't get why people think this would work, for the simple reason that *you* are distributing the recording of yourself, and thus you cannot claim piracy on the RIAA, or anyone else for that matter, for downloading from yourself.
They would need to prove I was the one to seed that file.
"Them downloading your "Britney Spears" song is piracy since you as copyright holder did not give them permission to do so."
Unfortunately, they don't bother to download the song at all, they just take a screenshot of the filename and your IP and contact your ISP.
The typical method that they use is to connect to the tracker and get a list of the clients who are sharing the file(s) in question. It doesn't matter if your client is running encryption or not -- they are going to find out that your IP address is sharing this file. The only solution for this is private trackers.
Or proxy connections. I see a new type of BT program. In addition to connecting to a 'file tracker', it also connects to a 'proxy tracker' (both probably the same machine). Your BT program offers one or more proxy connections, and takes advantage of an equal number of proxy connections offered by other users. Yes, this will use more bandwidth, but who really uses all their bandwidth anyway? If the RIAA/MPAA comes calling, simply point out that you offer proxy connections to others, and that you'd be ever-so-happy to pass on their notice to the real infringers, but golly-gee, you don't keep logs.
"The heart of the slippery slope fallacy lies in abusing the intuitively appreciable transitivity of implication, claiming that A lead to B, B leads to C, C leads to D and so on, until one finally claims that A leads to Z. While this is formally valid when the premises are taken as a given, each of those contingencies needs to be factually established before the relevant conclusion can be drawn. Slippery slope fallacies occur when this is not done -- an argument that supports the relevant premises is not fallacious and thus isn't a slippery slope fallacy."
In other words, Slippery Slope is only a fallacy if you assume (with no further evidence) that 'A' must inevitably lead to 'Z'. If you have evidence that supports each step of the way, it isn't a logical fallacy.
Besides, most people using the Slippery Slope argument are using a 'worst case' scenario to show what MIGHT happen, not what necessarily WILL happen. It makes sense to avoid scenarios where bad things can happen. (ie: wear your seatbelt, or if you get in an accident, you could get thrown out of the car and die. Using that argument doesn't mean you WILL get in an accident, or that you WILL die if you get in one, but rather that it is a possibility, and because of the severity of the results, it is good to avoid scenarios with such possibilities.)
Screenshot? Trivial to fake.
Hmm. That gives me an idea. Who provides the RIAA with internet service, again?
A part of the problem is that it's difficult and expensive to store electricity to move a vehicle. This hasn't been solved yet, though there have been some improvements.
To me the solution that looks best is some development of the super-capacitor. It might not work, but it looks very promising. And if it does it would allow an essentially unlimited number of fast charge-discharge cycles.
I say use a liquid. Use nuclear/wind/solar/hydro-power to make a sort of 'artificial gasoline'. If possible, make this liquid be compatible with regular gas- that way you can mix them together as needed (kinda like ethanol).
This takes advantage of the currently existing infrastructure such as Gas stations (with their underground tanks, pumps, and hoses/nozzles, etc), tanker trucks, pipelines, etc. AND it lets people who are already aware of the proper handling and care of liquid fuel continue to use and handle a familiar substance.
No capacitors, no batteries, no pressurized gas canisters needed.
"72" and "73" are:
1) Whole numbers (and therefore easier to remember and work with)
2) 2 characters long
While "22.0" (Actually 22.22) and "22.5" (actually 22.78) are twice as long, and one is a fraction, making them harder to write, remember, and work with.
The fact of the matter is that the more educated you are the less likely you are to have children.
It's called the Idiocracy effect.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0387808/
I had a similar idea years ago- when your bt client connects to a file tracker, it also connects to a 'proxy tracker' (which may or may not be the same server as the file tracker). Your client offers one or more 'proxy connections', and can take advantage of the same number of other people's proxies.
The point is they wouldn't have left before the cops got there, the cops were waiting and could've gone in at any moment from the time they walked out of the first shop.
SO, the cops stood by and LET them steal from store after store after store, instead of arresting them after the first one? If I was one of the other stores that also got robbed, I'd be pissed. What would have happened if the crooks had caused damage, or (god forbid) hurt someone? The police would have been liable.
They overstayed their welcome, so to speak. What would have happened if they left before the cops got there? The crime is on tape, but there are no suspects. Only some grainy footage that most likely is too poor quality to ID the perps.
Cops don't catch crooks because cops are smart, they catch crooks because crooks are dumb.
However, if you were to draw 1000 gal/m from that water pipe all day every day, you would:
a) pay out the ass for the usage
b) be asked by the water company to try to limit your consumption, since the water is a finite resource.
a) Not if I was sold an 'unlimited' usage plan.
b) there are buildings/companies/industries that use WAY ore than that much water. When was the last time you heard of a water company cutting them off?
Anyone reading Slashdot and who hasn't been living in a cave knows that your cable connection doesn't entitle you to saturate that connection 24/7.
Yeah- having a water pipe that can deliver "1000 gallons a minute" doesn't mean you can actually get, you know, 1000 gallons a minute out of it.
Having a car with a top speed of 120mph certainly doesn't mean you can actually go 120.
And having 200amp electrical service certainly doesn't mean you can draw 200 amps from it.
On on hand, the gym membership example is not applicable because the finite resources we are talking about are not the same. In the terms of a gym membership, it is possible to put more machines in, and there are several different machines.
And it is possible for the ISP to increase it's upstream bandwidth ('put in more machines'). It's also possible to use multiple frequencies and/or break up large areas covered by one headend into smaller areas ('several different machines').
But that would cost money. And god forbid the executives take home a measly 9.9 gajillion dollars instead of the full 10.
The last paragraph:
The "my WiFi network was open" defense has even been raised in the context of filesharing. If I have an open WAP, the reasoning goes, then no one can pin the file-sharing on me. That's a risky strategy, due in no small part to the recording industry's reliance on IP addresses to identify its targets. You may be able to demonstrate down the line that it actually was someone else downloading The Carpenters' Greatest Hits over your open network, but doing so may prove to be a very expensive proposition.