What In The Hell?

[BlindMansTicket]

http://www.eon8.com/ <--- wtf?

Interesting site relating to it.
http://unfunnytruthabouteon8.ytmnd.com/

Discuss.

I personally think it's a site to build up hype for something, like the Nasa Space Launch tommorow. Or possible Schicks answer to the Gillette Mach 5 razor.

[hellsing293]

first link didn't work for me. but, there's no way thats true. There's no way a giant terrorist organization like the Hamas(current reigning political party of Palestine also) would be able to be found by GOOGLE LOL. but, you never know...

[BlindMansTicket]

The countdown ended 1 and half hours ago.

It was all a six month long social experiment. I was dissappointed. I wanted some cool shit to go down.

[jedimaster86]

I took a look around the Internet, and as BMT said above it was all just a psychological experiment. Quote below from the dude who was in charge of the site:

"{eon8} Complete
As of July 1st, 2006, the E8 Project has completed.
The purpose of this project was to determine the reactions of the internet public to lack of information.
History
The domain eon8.com was chosen, as it is short, easily remembered, and eon9 was already registered.
It was originally posted on www.msfn.org, but was promptly removed as 'spam'. It was enough time for it to be copied to other forums throughout December 2005.
Results
We were amazed to discover that the site was instantly linked with terrorism, simply for the fact that it seems mysterious. Evil was the number one first impression people had of the site, in spite of the fact that there are no threats on the site. The only thing Eon 8 says is "We don't want you here". Nothing else.
Other less dis.appointing opinions were social experimentation (which was correct), James Bond movie viral marketing, and promotions for video games.
For many people, being faced with a countdown timer was an instant reason to try to shut down or hack the site. This is a worrying reaction, that if someone doesn't understand something they must destroy it. As a result, the servers have been hit quite hard these last few days, but luckily 99% of the 'hackers' could easily be described as 'l4me ****s'.
Another worrying example of paranoia was how quickly people would jump to conclusions, such as telephoning the registered owner of a dog seen in a photograph on a server that hosts a page that links to eon8.
Surprises
The folks at Unfiction.com were the most resourceful and inventive, they successfully managed to decrypt several of the 'codes' on the site, forcing them to be re-encrypted using more secure methods.
FAQ
What about eon5.com?
Nothing to do with us. Pure coincidence, but worked in our favor.

What about the 8th eon being the end of the world?
We picked Eon 8 because Eon 9 was already taken. We didn't know about the significance of this. Eon is a cool sounding word!

Why July 1st?
We didn't know how long it would take to get the word out using our subtle promotion methods. We allowed over 6 months.

What do the codes on the site mean?
They're mostly randomly generated integers encrypted with md5, but with certain letters removed and replaced. The Logs page is simply based on the current timestamp, encrypted and modified. You can't decrypt them, they really are random numbers.

What is the Deployment Map?
They're dots placed over major cities and several random locations, it was done mostly from memory. The random gif filename is an added touch to force a slight delay on loading, which looks more impressive in Internet Explorer, but not as much in Firefox.

What's the password?
There isn't one. If you did somehow manage to get in, you'd see an empty folder with a single text file that says "This is a decoy folder. Please connect to the internal secure network".

Can I see your website statistics?
Yes, click here.

Are you anything to do with Scientology?
Did you see anything talking about a Free Personality Test or Xenu? Use your brain.

Who are you, really?
The most I can tell you is I am a 23 year old web designer from Florida named Mike. I can't narrow it down anymore than that. When I say 'we', I really mean 'me'.
Conclusions
People take things too seriously and panic over the most trivial things. But at the same time there are many people out there who think things through without jumping to conclusions. You can't let pointless speculation rule your lives and force you to live in fear.
In Closing
Thanks to everyone who kept things interesting, especially to the folks at unfiction. Sorry there is no ARG for you to play, but at least you had fun while it lasted.


Click here for one Final Message from Eon 8

BE HAPPY
THE END
Sincerely, x21b

[hellsing293]

i know he didn't threaten anyone, or anything. but, having shit like dots over major cities and things about the Hamas and other terrorist signs on his site. can't that somehow be considerd illegal? what if some government agency investigated and found out it was him. i know he could say "there was no threat etc on my site" but wouldn't he be screwed?

[[Ghost]]

I really liked this site, it actualy does show what the pubilc does when theres no information about somthing.

http://www.eon5.com is now my new homepage

[BlindMansTicket]

Ghost, that website was for a line of french facial creme like seriously 5 hours ago. wtf?

Also, a new timer has surfaced. www.8eon.com and I know already this is just a parody of eon8. (the timer counts up)

Try highlighting the page; you get a little fun message at the bottom (I saw that in the pages source before I tried it out) ~jedi