A post office for receiving and redistributing e-mail messages on a computer network, the post office comprising: a receipt mechanism that receives an e-mail message from a sender, the e-mail message having at least one specified recipient; a database of business rules, each business rule specifying an action for controlling the delivery of an e-mail message as a function of an attribute of the e-mail message; a rule engine coupled to receive an e-mail message from the receipt mechanism and coupled to the database to selectively apply the business rules to the e-mail message to determine from selected ones of the business rules a set of actions to be applied to the e-mail message; and a distribution mechanism coupled to receive the set of actions from the rule engine and apply at least one action thereof to the e-mail message to control delivery of the e-mail message and which in response to the rule engine applying an action of deferring delivery of the e-mail message, the distribution engine automatically combines the e-mail message with a new distribution list specifying at least one destination post office for receiving the e-mail message for review by an administrator associated with the destination post office, and a rule history specifying the business rules that were determined to be applicable to the e-mail message by at least one rule engine, and automatically delivers the e-mail message to a first destination post office on the distribution list instead of a specified recipient of the e-mail message. view more

The post office of claim 1, further comprising: a primary message store, coupled to the receipt engine, for receiving and non-persistently storing e-mail messages; and a secondary message store, coupled to the distribution engine, for receiving therefrom, and persistently storing an e-mail message in response to the rule engine specifying the action that the e-mail message be reviewed by an administrator recipient prior to delivery to a specified recipient. view more

A process for deferring the delivery of selected e-mail messages, comprising: storing a database of business rules, each business rule specifying an action for controlling the delivery of an e-mail message as a function of an attribute of the e-mail message; receiving a plurality of e-mail messages at a first post office, each e-mail message having at least one specified recipient; selecting at least one e-mail message from the plurality of e-mail messages by applying at least one business rule to the e-mail message; delivering each non-selected e-mail message to its specified recipients; and deferring the selected e-mail message by: automatically combining the selected e-mail message with a new distribution list specifying at least one new destination post office for receiving the e-mail message for review by an administrator associated with the destination post office and a rule history specifying at least one business rule determined to be applicable to the e-mail message; automatically delivering the selected e-mail message to a destination post office on the distribution list instead of a specified recipient of the e-mail message; persistently storing the selected e-mail message in a storage area of the destination post office until the selected e-mail message is reviewed prior to any further delivery of the e-mail message to its specified recipients or to another destination post office on the distribution list. view more

A computer implemented process for reviewing an e-mail message, comprising: receiving the e-mail message at a first post office, the e-mail message having at least one specified recipient; deferring the e-mail message by: automatically combining the selected e-mail message with a new distribution list specifying at least one second post office for receiving the e-mail message for review by an administrator associated with the second post office and a rule history specifying at least one business rule determined to be applicable to the e-mail message; and automatically delivering the selected e-mail message to an administrator at the second post office on the distribution list instead of a specified recipient of the e-mail message; persistently storing the e-mail message at the second post office until the e-mail message is reviewed; automatically reviewing the e-mail message after a specified time interval to determine an action to be applied to the e-mail message; and automatically applying the action to the e-mail message. view more

A method for identifying characteristics of data files, comprising:</claim-text> receiving, on a processing system, file content identifiers for data files from a plurality of file content identifier generator agents, each agent provided on a source m and creating file content IDs using a mathematical algorithm, via a network; determining, on the processing system, whether each received content identifier matches a characteristic of other identifiers; and outputting, to at least one of the source systems responsive to a request from said source system, an indication of the characteristic of the data file based on said step of determining. view more

A method of filtering an email message, comprising:</claim-text> receiving, on a second computer, a digital content identifier created using a mathematical algorithm unique to the message content from at least two of a plurality of first computers g digital content ID generator agents; comparing, on the second computer, the digital content identifier to a characteristic database of digital content identifiers received from said plurality of first computers to determine whether the message has a characteristic; and responding to a query from at least one of said plurality of computers to identify the existence or absence of said characteristic of the message based on said comparing. view more

A method for providing a service on the Internet, comprising:</claim-text> collecting data on a processing system from a plurality of systems having a client agent generating digital content identifiers created using a mathematical algorithm for each plurality of files on the Internet to a server having a database; characterizing the files on the server system based on said digital content identifiers received relative to other digital content identifiers collected in the database; and transmitting a substance identifier from the server to the client agent indicating the presence or absence of a characteristic in the file. view more

The virus screening method of claim 1 further comprising the step of determining that virus screening is to be applied to the call based upon at least one of an identification code of the calling party and an identification code of the called party. view more