A method of selective direct memory access (DMA) in a computer system having a network interface card (NIC), a processor subsystem, and a memory accessible to the subsystem, including the steps of the NIC receiving a plurality of packets from an external source; the NIC decoding a portion of each packet and determining whether the packet should be accepted by the computer system based on a predefined rule; and if the packet is accepted, selectively truncating the packet based on the predefined rule, and storing the truncated packet in the memory.