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Our E-mail SPAM Filter and how it works

Your e-mail program contacts an e-mail server then delivers the message with instructions on where to send it (i.e. the e-mail address TO)
The E-mail server then attempts to contact the recipients e-mail server (if the mail was to joe@aol.com it tries to contact aol.com)
first the E-mail server  looks up the address number for the mail server at aol.com using a service called  "DNS"  or naming service
then it looks up the mail exchange record (or MX record) to find the e-mail server. Once it finds the e-mail server it tries to connect to that server directly to deliver the message.

When an e-mail server contacts us this is what happens
1: The connection is made  and the IP address of the sender is logged(along with the time and date)
2: The Sender computer says HELO (the spam filter checks the IP number to see what name belongs to that address)
3: The spam filter checks to see if there is an MX record for that address
4: The spam filter then checks to see what the computer (sending the e-mail) calls itself and matches it against the naming service.
5: If the computer sending the e-mail does not have an MX record or the names do not match. The filter closes the connection
6: The sending computer then says mailfrom:joe@aol.com
     (the spam filter then checks to see if this address is allowed to send us e-mail)
7: The sending computer then says rcpt to:psa@elbc.net (the spam filter then looks to see if the address is allowed)
8: If all the checks pass it then will allow the e-mail through to the e-mail server

The E-mail server may still reject the e-mail if one of the following conditions are met.
1. There is no valid e-mail address (such as jan@elbc.net : there is no such account so the e-mail server will bounce the e-mail back to the sender
2. The e-mail contains a virus. (Our virus protection program scans incoming and outgoing e-mails for viruses)
3. The e-mail contains a disallowed attachment (see Why can't I send e-mail with certain attachments? )

This spam filter can be set up to ignore (allow through) certain IP ranges as well as specific addresses
The following e-mail addresses are not filtered in any way.

Below is a list of the Spam List Services we subscribe to.