Blocking individual and IP regions is easy if you are on an Apache server using .htaccess.
Take these as examples where the first part (xx.xxx.) is deleted
:
# BLOCKING THE CORRESPONDING IP RANGES STARTS HERE 0/25 blocks 128 IPs while 0/24 blocks 256 IPs - Class C
deny from xx.xxx.254.0/25
deny from xx.xxx.148.0/24
There is no problem blocking the whole world yourself inclusive (and open up the IP's you want traffic from. Like only allowing emails from persons on your addresslist - I think it is possible, but have not tried it. First disallow the whole world by one deny instruction and then allow the IP (region)'s you want traffic from??). That is an informal way of setting up a customer extranet, though not so secure as a formal one.
You should use passwords more than 20 characters long if that is possible.
It should also be possible to write traps for Bots that confuse them (eg. let them into a joke portal returning with the joke. That may be very effecitvie. First it stops furhter attacks that day, then it takes time to interpret the message until next attempt. Don't make the message too short, and include some randomly composed words etc. at random visits). Is it possible to digitally identify a bad bot and send an automatic message to the hoster where it came from?
KW search:
spider trap
bad bot trap
etc.
Filtering email spam is fairly easy, even by using Hotmail (there are wholes if they are not filled) and Gmail. Now I receive less than 20 spam emails a day on my x accounts.
I had an email account that I get a lot of PayPal spam from. Then I redirected the emails to my HotMail account with a 99 % filter for a while, and now it has disappeared completely. Seemingly the MS hotmail server has a fairly advanced method (better than Gmail as far as I know) to filter and stop email spam. Great Microsoft.
I think there are three countries in the world that could close their borders (but not prevent those within the borders or those who have access to servers with internet access within the borders) without large problems (may be not China now with their large export to the rest of the world):
In alphabetic order:
China
Russia
USA
The potential for USA is there already
But please let me in or I must start pulling fish up from the ocean like many other Norwegians. In the end, may be better for my health.