System and method of filtering unwanted electronic mail messages

摘要

An anti-spamming agent filters incoming email messages to eliminate unsolicited and unwanted email messages, particularly bulk email messages commonly known as spam. The anti-spamming agent gives all incoming mail messages a score and processes the messages based on the message score. Messages receiving a qualifying score are forwarded to the user. All other messages are either discarded or quarantined while the anti-spamming agent performs further authorization procedures, such as a challenge-response procedure. When a message from an unknown sender is received, a verified mail registry may be queried to authenticate the sender, and the mail may be processed based on the response from the verified mail registry.