It has always been said that digital computers are unsuited for certain tasks, and they may always be, just as people are not particularly well suited to certain tasks (how many digits of pi can you quote?). The internet may provide a link between computers and humans, in which humans can not only solicit computational tasks from a large number of computers. Computers may also be able to solicit large numbers of human-computable tasks using a simple reward mechanism: pr0n. According to slashdot, some spammers may be using this technique to break through a visual blocking technique, which they claim is called a "captcha" (although I think I've heard more precise technical names for this technique). Basically, some text is distorted in ways that are very difficult for computers to figure out, but easy for humans to read. When this text is displayed as a graphic, a human user can proceed by typing in the correct text. An automated computer script would be halted in its tracks when presented with such an image -- unless it can go out and find some human to decode the graphic. But automated scripts process pages in bulk. Where will you find a human(s) to process all those captchas? Porn sites! Decode a graphic, get some porn. Slashdot | Porn Rewards Users To Get Past Anti-Spam Captchas And that was how the revolution started.