A discussion on the topic “Markup bypasses lower character limit” is underway. Mikulas pointed out that using HTML tags like <div></div> can artificially extend the title and body of a post, potentially bypassing the lower character limit. Mikulas provided a proof of concept, which ArmedGuy also tested. Riking suggested that this “bug” might not be worth fixing unless it’s exploited in a malicious way, as it already requires effort to submit a post under the character count. Mikulas agreed, and codinghorror chimed in, stating that this issue is not unique to the current platform and that the real solution lies in banning users who abuse this feature.
Both title and body can be artificially extended by appending <div></div>. Character entropy is still enforced properly though, after the markup has been removed from title.
This might be seens as a power user feature and frankly I quite like it, but it seems like a bug nevertheless.
Proof of concept (following post):
Personally, I wouldn’t bother fixing this until some kind of incident happens - someone using it to be obnoxious. The fix might be pretty involved, and it has questionable benefit – what are we really trying to discourage here? The wrong thing is already hard - you have to consciously put the effort into submitting a post that’s under the character count.
Also – I’m using – too many dashes.
Right, right, that pretty much articulates what I thought. I’m happy this „feature“ is to stay for the time being, but I thought I would bring this up in case somebody deems it terribly insecure.
This “bug” has been open on Stack Overflow forever, too. Not a bug, that’s just the way it works. Always some way to get around it.
The real solution is that people who keep doing this get banned 
+1