Attrition has been funded by the staff members for over twenty one years now. We use no banner advertisements, no link exchanges, and never ask for donations unless we feel the situation is worthy of such a request (twice in the first ten years). Over the years, Attrition has provided a single source for a wide variety of security and miscellaneous resources. This includes the Defacement Mirror, which often took three staff members working as much as sixteen hours a day each, and the Data Loss project, which took dozens of hours per week to maintain over a period of more than three years. Through the generosity of Infowarrior, and then Lyger, Attrition has been given exceptional co-location/hosting rates. This alone has allowed Attrition to survive as long as it has. Since its creation, the hardware running this system has been upgraded five times, one of which was documented here. Now we're cloudy, for our web server, so monthly costs are a real thing.
As a result of the hardware upgrades, hosting costs, domain registrar, routers, Barracuda servers, and continued feedback, we are offering a way to donate to Attrition. If you feel that Attrition has been helpful to you or your organization, or has just flat-out been better than a night out at the movies, feel free to donate here. Please Note! Attrition will continue on, in one form or another, even if we don't receive a single penny. This is a hobby site run in the spare time of the various staff and volunteer members. We do this for our own reasons, and money certainly has never been one of them.
Where will the money really go?
To be honest, the money will first be used to offset the cost of the hardware and now the monthly hosting fees. Any additional money we receive will be used for various reasons:
Will any form of income compromise the objectivity or integrity of Attrition.org?
No. To be clear: we are not asking for donations. If we receive donations from a company, it will not influence our work or opinions. Even if a large multinational donated a million dollars tomorrow, we would still question their business practices and write about them if we felt it was warranted. Further, if you are a company we list on the Errata pages, save yourself the time and just don't donate. We will not remove any content because of a donation and it not influence us.
Will donating to Attrition.org get me any special treatment, access, prizes, etc?
Probably not.
