Reading (For Dummies)

MT-Revenue

Solution the Movable Type spam problem:

1) Change your mt-comment post script so it displays a disclaimer window first. The window says, "Advertisers will be billed $500 per posting to this blog. If your comment is not an advertisement, there will be no charge. Click 'I agree' to continue with your post." Log the user's alleged email address and IP like you normallly do.

2) ???

3) Profit! Either way, you win. You can take them to court for violating your terms of service vis-a-vis posting comments. Failing that, you can make one hell of a tax write-off at the end of year (your customer defaulted on payments == lost profit).

I suppose this points out the obvious difference between comments-spam and e-mail spam: comments-spam is interactive. You can make people jump through a relatively simple hoop to post it, and not lose meaningful comments.

Anyway, back to OS programming...