April 21, 2010

Readers may notice over the next day or so advertisements in one or two prominent spots on this blog. This is the result of a new partnership between Krebs on Security and Federated Media Publishing, a company that connects independent Web site authors with advertisers.

Federated Media currently represents more than 100 of the most respected social media properties on the Web, including The New York Times, BoingBoing, Breitbart, Mashable, and ReadWriteWeb, to name a few.

The reporting and investigations I have been conducting through krebsonsecurity.com take up a substantial amount of my time, and this partnership should help ensure that I can continue to dedicate my attention to this vital and highly relevant beat. Thank you for your continued support and readership.


29 thoughts on “Krebsonsecurity.com Partners with Federated Media

  1. AnonymousMike

    The content you provide is certainly worth a few adds, whatever you have to do to keep writing is worth it in my book.

  2. FZ

    Congrats, I hope you’re able to bring in a few dollars to support your valuable journalism. You’re one of very few reporters who provides critical reporting on security issues.

    I’d be interested to see how many of your readers use AdBlock, though.

  3. JohnP

    Just set ABP to allow ads from your site.

    Supporting sites with excellent content and non-abusive ads is a good thing for all of us and the internet overall.

  4. emv x man

    Congratulations and if I don’t notice the ads I might have to ask you where they are so I can turn off Adblock Plus so I can see them…

    1. BrianKrebs Post author

      Thanks EMV- For now, I’m going to keep it to the big banner up top (leaderboard) and the 300×250 box in the upper right of the sidebar.

  5. Mick

    I just turned off AdBlock on y0ur website. I’m happy to support you and your website. Keep up the good work!

  6. Mike

    Hopefully you will keep an eye out for malware distribution via your new partner ad network. The utter inability/unwillingness for those guys to police themselves is the reason I feel no guilt about leaving ads turned off.

    1. BrianKrebs Post author

      Yeah, I hear you. For the first day or so it may be backup Google ads, but for the most part it will be very specific ads that Federated runs across a series of their partner sites.

      1. Tom

        I know where Mike is coming from, but that won’t stop me from allowing ads on your site. In fact, I think I can say with all honesty that I would allow ads from Krebs on Security before any other site on the Web due to the sheer value of the content.

        Be careful, though! It could be the irony of all ironies if your site one day ends up being the source of those malware laden ads that you’ve reported on so diligently.

        1. JCitizen

          Same here – kudos to Brians site!

  7. Bernie

    Go for it Brian.

    I’ll look at the ads if it means keeping you in business and you can pikupacuppalabuks.

    That’s not too much to ask for receiving all your free help and advice.

    Best of luck to you.

    Bernie

  8. Patrick

    Gratzie! I have noticed the layout morphing a bit but thought it was our firewall or the like. Ads are never blocked from the dual AV covered VM this is written from. Kind of hoping one day one of those AVs has something more than Eicar or misdetections to report.

  9. AlphaCentauri

    I don’t mind seeing ads, but I don’t like the animated ones, either. I’m using Noscript, which blocks Javascript based on the source of the ad. So if I allow doubleclick.net here, it allows it on all sites. Doubleclick seems to be the source of the annoying animated ad I’m seeing right now. I’m assuming fmpub.net is the one we should allow?

  10. OhioMC

    Brian – thanks for your work. I allowed your site in AdblockPlus, but I also use Ghostery; do I need to allow the web bug for Federated Media for you to get the full benefit?

  11. Toddzilla

    NoScript users will need to allow fmpub.com if they want to support the good work that Brian does. I did.

  12. David Whashburn

    Glad to hear you’ve getting revenue for this great content. Keep up the good work and like Mick I’ll turn off adblock while visiting.

  13. george

    Strange, the ads show in my Firefox as white, empty rectangles and I don’t have AdBlock plugin, just NoScript(even with temporarily allow all of this page) and Ghostery… (with Federated Media unblocked)

    1. Wladimir Palant

      You might want to check your antivirus application – many of them have ad blocking built-in which they activate without asking. If you are on a company network, their proxy servers often block ads as well.

    2. xAdmin

      I see the same thing but with IE8.

      Are you using the MVPS Blocking Hosts file?
      http://www.mvps.org/winhelp2002/hosts.htm

      It has the following entries blocking fmpub.net:

      # [Priority Colo][AS30176][204.11.48.0 – 204.11.55.255]
      127.0.0.1 adserver.fmpub.net
      127.0.0.1 dynamic.fmpub.net
      127.0.0.1 static.fmpub.net
      127.0.0.1 tenzing.fmpub.net

      To unblock these put a # in front of each entry. You may have to clear your DNS cache after doing so (from a command prompt, type ipconfig /flushdns). <— Requires admin access.

      Of course, if these entries stay in future HOSTS files (updated monthly), you'll have to go in and put the # in again.

      I'm sure these entries are in the blocking hosts file as ad blocking only. Whereas many other entries are to block known malicious websites.

      From the MVPS Hosts website:
      "Editors Note: As time has progressed the focus of this project has changed from just blocking ads/banners to protecting the user from the many parasites that now exist on the Internet. It doesn't serve much purpose if you block the ad banner from displaying as most other HOSTS files do, but get hijacked by a parasite from an evil exploit or download contained on the web site. The object is to surf faster while preserving your Safety, Security and Privacy."

  14. Rick

    Everybody’s gotta pay the bills. Good news Bk will be able to too.

  15. JCitizen

    Hey! I like these ads! I do business with progressive! Can’t resist the Flo character, heh!, heh!

    Cool ads Brian! Got my ABP disabled for your site!!!

Comments are closed.