Patent ID: 7222157

Claim:
A method to handle digital communications, the method comprising: receiving a complaint communication from a receiving system, the complaint communication being generated in response to receipt of a first digital communication by the receiving system; determining a first digital signature for at least a portion of the first digital communication; selecting a second digital signature from among multiple stored digital signatures; comparing the first digital signature with the second digital signature; incrementing a counter associated with the second digital signature conditioned on the first digital signature matching the second digital signature; conditioned on the first digital signature not matching the second digital signature; determining whether the first digital signature matches any of the multiple stored digital signatures, and storing the first digital signature among the multiple stored digital signatures conditioned on the first digital signature not matching any of the multiple stored digital signatures; and modifying the handling of digital communications that include at least a portion having a digital signature that matches the second digital signature based on the counter associated with the second digital signature.