Date: Sat Jul  1 05:11:46 2006
From: jay at aftinc.net (Jay Buhrt)
Subject: Hah, Interesting.....

{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

-- 
Jay Buhrt
Achievement Focused Technology, Inc.
jay@...inc.net
574-538-8944

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