eon8!

[Polygon]

in case any of you haven't heard already, a new "anomaly" has appeared on the Internet, www.eon8.com

you most likely wont be able to visit it.... as so many people are visiting and ddos'ing it... that it seems either the bandwidth is shot or the server died.

but a good article (and finally locked article!) is on wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eon8

short version: count down clock counting down to July 1 at midnight. but... what for? is it some sort of viral advertising campaign like the halo series and ilovebees.com (people speculate that the phantom game console would be the culprit here). Other people think it might point to the new james bond movie, etc etc. And of course, there are claims that its the end of the world, massive computer virus, terrorist attack (brought about the "deployment map" that has red dots over major cities) etc etc.

opinions! i think its a viral marketing campaign personally, but dunno what though.

[raublekick]

i think at midnight tonight, i'm gonna have a cheap bottle of wine in me, surrounded by good friends, and i'm not gonna care.

[fuscia]

what time is it now?

[woedend]

its a countdown to when I will pass out if i continue drinking steady pace.

[Iandefor]

I visited the link and got


You are accessing this site from an UNVERIFIED HTTP REFERER. The site you were referred by has been recorded, and has been queued for a security audit by ES-12.
Site: www.ubuntuforums.org

Audit Status: Pending ES-12 Verification

You may now continue (http://www.eon8.com/?continue&tz=false) Oh dear.

[Rhapsody]

It's something I've been looking at a bit. It's generally thought to be some sort of viral marketing, but what for? I've seen guesses like Casino Royale (the next James Bond movie), Halo 3, Duke Nukem Forever, another Matrix film, and so on.

I plan to be there when it hits zero (less than two hours from now) to see what happens.

[Iandefor]

It's something I've been looking at a bit. It's generally thought to be some sort of viral marketing, but what for? I've seen guesses like Casino Royale (the next James Bond movie), Halo 3, Duke Nukem Forever, another Matrix film, and so on.

I plan to be there when it hits zero (less than two hours from now) to see what happens. What do those deployment numbers mean? And what the hell is deployment anyways? I'm intrigued...

[Sheinar]

Duke Nukem Forever
If only.

[Polygon]

the deployment tracker codes translate into IP's according to wikipedia

Deployment Logs

A page that is referred to as "Deployment Logs" gives several strings of Hexadecimal code. The amount of strings increases periodically, reaches a peak amount, then restarts. The strings that appear each time are the same. The ends of these strings translate into valid IP addresses, all of which are IT related (excluding #2):

1. 144.24.126.178 - Oracle Corporation, a software developer
2. 54.203.252.97 - Merck & Co.
3. 232.47.136.23 - IANA reserved address
4. 107.68.120.249 - IANA reserved address
5. 148.64.94.15 - Spacenet, Inc., a provider of satellite-based services
6. 114.118.142.45 - IANA
7. 87.92.99.102 - The Réseaux IP Européens Network Coordination Centre (RIPE NCC), the internet registry for various countries
8. 57.98.78.52 - SITA, a company specialising in providing IT services to the aviation industry

[~LoKe]

I've set up a mirror to the main page, incase you can't view the actual one for some reason.

X04D.com (http://www.x04d.com)

[Lux Perpetua]

Thanks, ~LoKe.

Any theories about the hidden black text at the bottom of the page?

[woedend]

Lol...change your time past 12, x04d quits working(for me at least)
it doesnt fool good ol eon8 though.

[~LoKe]

They're using a mix of PHP and Javascript, I'm using pure Javascript so it's running simply off client time. =[

[GuitarHero]

i cant get to it anymore so im guessing it was nothing?

[woedend]

it might be something...apparently we killed the server. Is everyone still alive?

[GuitarHero]

according to wikipedia(somehow it was updated already) it was just made to view the public reaction. Its been today for 7 minutes and someone already updated wikipedia.

[benplaut]

i'm guessing it's a hoax...

[Polygon]

for those who care:

http://www.xtracrispy.com/stuff1.JPG
http://www.xtracrispy.com/stuff2.JPG

there is more once you actually can get into the site

[Iandefor]

for those who care:

http://www.xtracrispy.com/stuff1.JPG
http://www.xtracrispy.com/stuff2.JPG

there is more once you actually can get into the site The server hasn't responded to me for like, 20 minutes. Damn cool experiment! I want to get into the site now...

[woedend]

{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 disappointing 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 n00bs'.
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

Happy birthday, mtcaptain. From 'ls224' (aka x21b). Yes that really was me in the #eon-8 channel

[Harold P]

It's already July 1st eastern time.

Nothing has happened. :p

[Iandefor]

Am I the only one who's listened to the "Final Message" from Eon8?

I liked it :).

[~LoKe]

The directory listing came up near the end. Did anyone happen to grab those files? I'd love to see the code behind the art.

[BWF89]

It's not real just a social expermient

http://www.eon8.com/deployed21b.php