To answer my own question, my firm's IT guy in the end chose
1and1.com. In the end I did find some ISP's that offered filtering
by Postini as an included benefit. Our IT guy was less impressed
with Postini than me. However, almost all ISP's now offer virus and
spam filtering at their level, including 1and1.

But I don't want to shelve the issue just yet. There seem to be two
conflicting trends. More and more client communications are through
email, to the point where it is almost indispensible. At the same
time, computer security threats are increasing geometrically in
number, professionalism and criminality.

I'm now wondering about what are the key things to consider when
setting up a law firm's email plumbing. And how exactly does it
work, anyway? Is it secure? How do you know?

As I understand it, all incoming email to our firm goes to one of
the ISP's servers, where it is filtered and sits until it is
downloaded by our firm's mail server, which then in turn sorts and
delivers the email to our internal network addresses. Is that the
usual set up for a law firm?

From my reading, at least as of 2004, Postini had a 1/3 market share
in filtering spam and viruses from large law firm email. I guess
that means that for those firms, the email goes from the ISP to
Postini, and then to the firm.

So, what is the standard one should look for with regard to data
security at the ISP level? Is it more secure to have a dedicated
server than a shared server or a virtual private server? Is there
any way to check on an ISP's track record for security?

And there is now unfortunately the issue of the filtering that is
done at the ISP level. There are all different kinds of filtering
systems, most of which seem to be either proprietary or rebranded.
Which one is better? What, if anything, are firms doing to see if
legitimate email is being mistakenly filtered out at the ISP level?

Maybe the answer is that like sausages and legislation, one should
not think too much about where email comes from.

Is anyone encrypting all client communications? Clients have their
own email filtering systems, and I doubt that encrypted emails get
through.





--- In Network-Lawyers@yahoogroups.com, "Tom Mighell" <tmighell@...>
wrote:
>
> Hey John,
>
> I'd love to answer his question, but I'm afraid I'm not any good at
> recommending an ISP -- I'm not even sure where I would begin to
look. I'm
> aware of "The List" (www.thelist.com), which lists all the ISPs
available
> for a particular area code -- but I wouldn't necessarily be able to
> recommend any of the ISPs listed......
>
> Tom
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Network-Lawyers@yahoogroups.com
> [mailto:Network-Lawyers@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of John DeBruyn
> Sent: Tuesday, March 21, 2006 5:40 PM
> To: Network-Lawyers@yahoogroups.com
> Subject: RE: [NetLawyers] Recommendations for ISP
>
> Hi Tom:
>
> I tried to send this (Saturday) afternoon just after your
wonderful weekly
> newsletter INTERNET LEGAL RESEARCH WEEKLY came out:
>
> http://www.inter-alia.net/
>
> Could you handle the following from David as if it were one of
those letters
> to the editor that you solicit and so kindly answer.
>
> Good thing I didn't recommend my ISP ... this email got lost in
the scuffle
> when my ISP's server crashed ... and that is why this took until
today
> (Tuesday) to get where it was going.
>
> Thanks,
>
> John
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Network-Lawyers@yahoogroups.com
> [mailto:Network-Lawyers@yahoogroups.com]On Behalf Of david4705
> Sent: Saturday, March 18, 2006 7:02 AM
> To: Network-Lawyers@yahoogroups.com
> Subject: [NetLawyers] Recommendations for ISP
>
>
> Anyone have a recommendation for an ISP for a law firm? I'm
looking
> for one that offers excellent antivirus and antispam filtering,
maybe
> using Postini.
>
>
>
>
>
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>
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