No comments allowed for the time being

Moderating comments did not discourage spammers and their ilk. I have turned off comments, and will leave them turned off for what I consider a reasonable length of time, after which I will turn them back on to see if I have discouraged the spammers. I just recently had my computer in the shop - Mike's, too - to clean up the malware. I have been given to understand that there has been a spate of malware showing up in computers in the past 6 months, according to the shop we had ours in. We think we may have a handle on it now, with various anti-malware programs and firewalls. What I'm thinking is that the spam is coming from the same places as the malware, and it may not go away any time soon. I think it is better to have the comments turned off than simply reject them, because I believe the spammers get paid regardless. I am sorry if I have inconvenienced anyone - I do like to have comments on my blogs, but I have had very few genuine comments recently - only 2 that have shown up since I started seeing spam, so it's probably no loss. I don't see a method of allowing selective posts to the point that I want to allow them - it's either risk spam, or allow none.