Help ATS Recover With Your Contribution

Err....I live in a world where cash is king and credit / debit cards are not really beneficial or even encouraged - Yes I know, I'm a bit of a dinosaur etc but it simply is what it is.

Any suggestions on how a donation(s) can be made?

a reply to: Freeborn

you could send skeptic a couple dabloons
that work for you?

a reply to: Freeborn

I don't know why this hasn't been answered, you are not the first to bring it up. I should think there is an address maybe they could pm you, and you could send a money order or cashiers check?

originally posted by: MerryChristmas
What exactly costed that much money? You were tweeting about how it cost a lot of money when the attack was still going on.

The DDoS mitigation service is expensive. Our level of protection needed to be beyond the stock offerings, and custom plans get very expensive.

So what happened, did the attack stop or did you throw some money at it in real time to stop it?

We have experienced our first 48 contiguous hours without an attack. But the mitigation service is still running, and will be an ongoing monthly expense.

How does something like that work?

The mitigation service essentially sits between us and the Internet. When a sudden extreme flood of traffic hits our IP, they're able to filter off the attack traffic, and let legitimate traffic through. But filtering off the attack traffic still requires enormous bandwidth and expensive hardware to accomplish.

What I am asking is, are we talking about money that was spent to stop the attack, or are we talking about money that is needed to provide better security in the future?

Both.

What has changed that makes ATS suddenly less viable?

ATS is still very viable with over 5 million pages of unique content. But there have been shifts in the advertising landscape that made things difficult for quite some time. The loss of AdSense. The increasing percentage of mobile traffic with (until now) limited monetization options. And now loss of traffic/revenue from being taken offline by attacks.

Are you saying that ATS' survival depends on people donating enough money to pay back that loan?

As was discussed in a previous "what if" thread with members, prior to posting this, ATS might survive without the donations… but it would take longer, thus increasing the risk of not surviving.

The long-term goal is to transition from our bare-metal servers into an elastic cloud platform that can more readily absorb brief attacks. Each of our attacks lasted no more than 20 minutes. But until we had the mitigation service in place, they were at a level that crashed entire switches at our hosting provider -- so they "shut off" our IP address for 24 hours… which is standard practice.

What if you only raise half of it and ATS still doesn't make it? Do donators get their money back?

No. It's a risk, most certainly, but not a big risk in my opinion. A contribution to ATS to help us rapidly respond to this threat and begin expensive infrastructure upgrades is a hedge for the continuance of what I feel is an important voice online.


A member sent me a private message, suggesting that we should just sell ATS and move on.

No.

This is my passion. This is what I do. This community is what I consider to be my life's best work (not the tech, but the people assembled). There is no option that does not include me fighting daily for the viability of this place; for the people who come here.

originally posted by: Freeborn
Err....I live in a world where cash is king and credit / debit cards are not really beneficial or even encouraged - Yes I know, I'm a bit of a dinosaur etc but it simply is what it is.

Any suggestions on how a donation(s) can be made?

Perhaps hold off until we start the IndieGoGo campaign to build the open source platform. There will be options for you in that case.

a reply to: Grovit

I do have some white fivers knocking about somewhere along with an odd guinea or two.

I'm sure I'll be able to work something out.

a reply to: Iamschist

Thanks to both you and SO for your replies.

I'll work something out, possibly a family member will be able to pay for me and I'll give them the cash.
That should suffice until something a bit more permanent is sorted out.

originally posted by: abe froman

Some people are proud to stand up for what they believe in and put their money where their mouth is, haters can kick rocks. Happy Holidays!

This says it all

STM

My dubloons are on their way. KMA glooble

a reply to: Freeborn

You could buy a Visa gift card maybe? One time use?

I'm just catching up on this thread and haven't read all the posts yet, but, after reading page one I'd like to say thanks for the support and YES, Google is full of it.

RE: The Google issue...

It's astounding to me that we went from Bill and I speaking to their team of compliance and ad sales execs to "Ads Suspended" in 3 short years where the only thing that has changed is Google being VERY interested in becoming the KING of User Generated Content. Think about YouTube (bought by Google a few years ago) and Google+ which was their failed (so far) answer to Facebook. It just stinks of something more than pure stupidity and arbitrary rule enforcement.

All that said, we will overcome these hurdles and make ATS even better "with a little help from our friends" who can and want to...

THANKS to each and every one of you who pitches in anything.

a reply to: SkepticOverlord

Thanks for responding.

The DDoS mitigation service is expensive. Our level of protection needed to be beyond the stock offerings, and custom plans get very expensive.

We have experienced our first 48 contiguous hours without an attack. But the mitigation service is still running, and will be an ongoing monthly expense.

But you make it sound like you had to come up with a substantial amount of money all of a sudden. I just don't get what it was spent on in 24 hours, and why you would need a big loan right away for something that is going to be a monthly expense.

And now loss of traffic/revenue from being taken offline by attacks.

Each of our attacks lasted no more than 20 minutes. But until we had the mitigation service in place, they were at a level that crashed entire switches at our hosting provider -- so they "shut off" our IP address for 24 hours… which is standard practice.

But you were offline for about 10 hours if I am not mistaken.

Do you expect ATS to get attacked everyday? It seems that the protection against sporadic attacks does more damage than the attack itself.

ATS should follow in Microsoft's and the Time's footsteps.

coinbase.com...
bitpay.com...

Or better yet:

changetip.com...

a reply to: Springer

agreed. google is full of themselves lately...

i absolutely HATE google+ their idiotic forced integration of it into EVERYTHING is beyond annoying. if i wanted to be on facebook, i'd be on facebook...forcing me to be part of a friggin facebook clone, just so i can comment on youtube videos is not only aggravating, but also creates a subclass of youtube users who can't have a voice unless they submit to google+

from what i understand, they're removing a lot of the forced integration, but they should have been smart, and not tried it in the first place...

at the end of the day, they're a business, and businesses are in "in the game", to make money.....i'm just thinking they could be a bit less dickish about it..

originally posted by: SkepticOverlord
a reply to: Blister



The working bullet-list of features for the new platform concept contains a model for financially rewarding contributors for great content.

by great content i hope you mean page views.

good car wrecks are hard to come by but seem to turn the most heads but at the same time who would ever admit they like to look at such

Has the DDoS really been that bad? I use the site every day and I only experienced a site outage once, about four or five days ago. I haven't had any other issues, no time outs, no lag, no 404. Strange!

A lot of sites have been getting slammed by DDoS attacks lately. Another site I frequent just had to get anti-DDoS software because of it.

Well I see why I have never liked Google crap to begin with, since it started to get too big and able to monopolize the net their tentacles will keep spreading.

Any chance that google and NSA are one and the same?

This days everything is open to questioning, still anything that hinders information because the power of the mighty wallet influencing any type of content in the net is clear sign of things to come, I am afraid is just going to get uglier.

a reply to: marg6043


happy to contribute...would b e nice to see something that says how much is collected and the total needed.....

60P791545L997301T.

a reply to: Springer

Thanks to you and SO for being open about the issues. I for one would hate to see Google create a monopoly of user-generated content. I'm still sad that microsoft shut down their user-run sites. (Why did they do that, anyway?)

And thanks for figuring out how to make the site profitable enough to be self-sustaining, and for rethinking your options and starting again. I know it can't be easy, so hats off and good luck. I know I'm erratic as hell with my presence and contributions but I would be lost if ATS disappeared too.

a reply to: SkepticOverlord

In this other thread I voiced my concerns that accepting donations could possibly open the door to Rothschild tactics ("Give me control of a nation's money and I care not who makes it's laws", here replace the word "a nation" by "ATS").

Were my concerns taken into consideration?

a reply to: SkepticOverlord
I will do my part to help, it is the least I can do for you letting me learn on this site. Thanks.