1. A method, comprising: determining a relationship between a plurality of existing rules in a rule set of a rule based system used to screen incoming data of a network, wherein the relationship includes a cause interaction and an effect interaction among the existing rules; creating a representation of the relationship including the cause interaction and the effect interaction; receiving a new rule to be inserted into the rule set; inserting a further relationship between the new rule and the existing rules into the representation to create a modified representation; and determining, based on the modified representation, if a conflict is created by insertion of the new rule in the rule set.