database the message may be blocked flagged as spam or subjected to further filtering application_number US 94651710 A description the present invention provides a method for filtering electronic messages that overcomes the limitations of the prior art it should be appreciated that u201c filtering u201d as used herein is not limited to blocking the transmission of an electronic message but may also encompass other outputs such as flagging as message or placing it in a separate storage location while still leaving it accessible to the intended recipient fig1 shows exemplary steps of a method 100 for filtering electronic messages method 100 may be implemented on electronic messaging systems in use on wide area networks such as the internet implementation of electronic messaging e g email using the internet is well understood in the art and need not be generally described here certain details concerning the internet however may be helpful for understanding an exemplary embodiment of the invention internet email messages are provided with header information that identifies a domain for the sender of the message and an ip internet protocol address for the server originating the message while it is relatively easy to supply a message header with a false domain name for the sender supplying a false ip address for the originating server is more difficult the invention may be configured to take advantage of these aspects of internet email messaging the method may be.