A Revolution is the Solution
lame trick? or did eon8 actually do something?
http://i7.photobucket.com/albums.../ytmnd-
eon8.jpg
All hacks were done by the same people.
At first, it was decided to be a unobtrusive that could only be seen by visiting a secret link (www.eon8.com/out), but then decided to replace the REVEALING page with what the /out page showed.
then, after some discussion, it was decided to be a better hack then originally done.
the article states 'rapid-fire barrage of hacks by various groups looking for some street-cred'. this is false. only 1 group was able to hack it. the site was experiencing major packet loss (notice the slow loads?), and everytime they tried to upload the hacked page, it would drop the connection and time out.
"the article states 'rapid-fire barrage of hacks by various groups looking for some street-cred'. this is false."
Note I also said, "apparently" - a necessary disclaimer, because I have no way of knowing how many people are physically hacking (or attempting to hack) the site, or for what reasons. Plus, I only have your word for it with regards the "intentions" of the group that hacked the site.
Either way, there can be no justification for hacking a site, ever. Especially as they did it *after* it turns out that there was never any danger posed by the target site in the first place. What, there was a "compelling case" for this site being a front for something incredibly malicious (which the hackers, with their message, seem to be pushing as their justification for hacking the site), yet they chose to hack it once the purpose of the site was revealed and the "danger" had passed?
Why not *before* the coundown reached zero, if they were so concerned about it?
The fact that the group also seemed indecisive at the moment of the hack (not knowing where to actually place the thing, then chopping and changing things round) makes the whole thing seem even more haphazard.
Thanks for the extra information though, I'll add it to the writeup 
Robomilk - that's just the page displayed when Ytmnd is genuinely down for server stuffage. I wouldn't worry about it 
This is a wonderful article, the best summary of my experiment. Unfortunately these 'hackers' did some real damage. I've spent the last 5 hours trying to repair the server. It was all supposed to be harmless. I even tried to end on a happy and positive note, with the mp3 etc. But some people with no sense of humour thought it would be more fun to hack into the server and gzip every file. The ironic thing is that it proves the results of the article. "I don't understand, therefore I must destroy".
I'll be posting links to many of the sites that discuss Eon8 shortly, I should include this one, as it's the most well-written article I've seen. Thankyou.
PS If anyone knows who those hackers are, feel free to tie them up and tattoo the word "EON8" to their faces. I'm not a hacker, there was no threat, only a positive message, and they took things too far.
wow. the one and only!
x21b Well Done you have without a doubt proved my personal theory that 99% of hackers have no sense of humor and a paranoid view of the world Again thanks
Well, Mike, I'd like to agree with you...and I'm sure you're feeling very superior right now. However, I think you crossed a few boundaries that should not be crossed.
#1 - our world is in turmoil - and something bad happening is highly likely. (not that it would be easily accessed on the internet)
#2 - you KNEW people would panic, there was no need for the "study". You just wanted to get your elitist jollies off. What if someone panicked so much they had a heart attack and died? Plenty possible with the extremely ominous overtones of the site. You happy with that on your conscious?
#3 - That so called happy song in the end says something about 'being ready to die' near the minute marker. I'm sure some people are STILL worried!
#4 - You claimed that your site made no threats...but c'mon man. A completely removed objective view would judge that site to be threatening. It had ominous overtones and the map with RED TARGET MARKERS in highly populated areas was a BIG tipoff? "No, you don't get extra points because you pulled them from your memory."
Also, surprised no one else noticed...but NEDM is ALSO an acronym for Numclear Event Detonation Monitoring. After all the other worrying that was done, I was surprised not to see anything about that on any forums.
Anyway..."Mike"...you put yourself on a pedestal and I, for one, don't appreciate it. I'm sure a lot of others don't either. There was no humor here. I appreciate the site for what it was...but I must say, you took it too far.
ALSO, you spelled the word "humour" instead of "humor". You're not in Florida, quit pretending. Unless you're a foreigner who moved here at 23, which is *highly* unlikely.
Have a nice day.
Hopefully if a real threat ever does arise, we don't downplay it and ignore it because YOU, Mike, cried wolf.
Eon8, apparently, didn't cure my typos.
One more thing too...one the site, before the timer reached zero...wasn't it "X13600"?
Either there's some hidden meaning, or you have a typo problem too Mike...because now it says "X13630".
=/ Dunno, thought I'd share.
I agree with Greg.
You're right, the X13600 changed to X13630. Both are meaningless.
And yes, I wasn't born in FL, I was born in Europe. Good job picking that up.
Well, If mike is still visiting this, Id just like to congratulate you. No greg, he didnt know that people would panic. It was an assumption. Way to fail.
Oh, and what about those US Dept of defense things on the logs of refferals, did you do that or was that legit?
Oh, and I'm from New York and I still spell things the way europeans do, as I learned it when I was younger and visited Neopets (Yes, im 12. Thanks for wondering.)
-Tom
Hey Mike, I really love your work, you really make everybody think that its in the end of the world. If you want, please add my webby. http://louisex.dommox.com/eon8
Now I'm telling everybody that I survived E8. :P
Good job on the experiment, sad part world still will live in fear, and the part people would destroy what they don’t under stand statement has been around since cave man, its human instinct, we haven’t evolved passed it, people where freaking out I was laughing, I didn't know what it was. What it will do. Personally, I thought it was harmless because its darn website with some text.
But I give you kudos. The best and smartest thing I see a person do with there time.
P.s. did US government send anything to you?
I thought it was interesting. eon8 turns out to be some kind of abreviation for world destruction. It could also mean something completely different. A bit like6, some people consider the number 6 to represent evil. It also means heaps of other things. I think the layout of the site would have intimidated a lot of people though. Black backgrounds... :S
But there was no proof of anything on it. Because some people might have been intimidated this intimidation might have been the strongest feeling they had since they didn't know what else to feel about the site. Therefore I believe that's why some people jumped to bad conclusions. But you have to think about things like that properly before proclaiming to everyone that there's going to be massive destruction when the clock finishes. Anyway, it was interesting to see your site stats, starting off at 7mb of bandwidth used to 9gb!
Well, Tom...thanks for publicly slobbering on Mike's nether regions, it was entertaining. As far as "failing", you are clueless beyond reason.
AND - of course he knew people would panic. Any fool with ANY measure of sense would know something so simple. He has certainly proven himself to contain some sense. Quit defending him just for the sake of defending him.
Prove it.
so, was the .rar yours ? whats the p/w? :P
Wh0 is defending him i thought it was a bloody good game to play on a people, im thinking of setting up a Global warming countdown clock just to see how people will react you know Big doomwatch style Letters and a Big countdown timer for global warming human Extinction
That's a great article.
However, what was your look on the situation? Did you wait for the countdown.
Personally, I had a fun time waiting to see what would happen, but wow, this thing REALLY scared some people. One person I was talking to was honestly sure it was the end of the world. He said "Look at the red dots. They're all in the areas of the enemies of Islam!" Hahaha.
I personally found a joke out of all of it. I mean, in the past our nation has actually had several things to be scared of i.e. the cuban missle crisis, and THIS can turn people insane?
thanks. I didn't stay up all night to see what happened, due to working pretty much flat out on something the previous days. Plus, I was 100% confident we'd all still be here in the morning to talk about it!
The panic factor was pretty interesting - especially over such commonplace things as "IPs being logged", referral lists etc.
Something else not discussed so far is the timing of the "big reveal". Assuming it would have been some kind of viral ad for a product launch, the timing was all out. I think this thing went live at about 4 / 5 AM UK time, which is what - about 9PM+ Pacific time? And about 12 midnight onwards for the rest of the States, and even later the further East you go.
No press person in their right mind would create such a buzz, then put out the reveal at such a late hour - what use is press buzz if there's no journalists to cover the moment of impact?
That's what convinced me it wouldn't be a viral ad in the end. I'm not sure exactly what I expected (though I was of course aware of the rumours of a social experiment), but total thermonuclear war wasn't it!
I only noticed this through PGs article, just before this one and I love that ytmdn link (with the loler music).
I have nothing against Americans, but this did prove a point, I especially get to see thru work on a daily basis (ISPS and stuff). You are just too paranoid! Look at the world cup. So many teams here in Germany atm and there are security measures, and you still get in with tickets bought on black market, or can bring professional cameras into stadiums, although forbidden. And - has there been any real thread yet? Nope, and its only a week to go. I think you seriously need to be a lil more relaxed and less paranoid and make sure that you get a new president asap.
- side note - surely there s also other nationalities involved, but most of the involved "parties" seem to be frm that particular country...
rgds,
oh and PG, as always gr8 writeup ^^ :D
I actually liked it. Very clever really.
Frankly, I find it kind of weird that people could get a heart attack over this. Paranoia at its best, I would say.
lol... I agree with "Yourhighness"
Its mostly the Americans that get crazy and paranoid over those things.
I live in Canada and my friends and I all figured the site was a hoax or something. I mean we knew it was POSSIBLE it could be something more but we also knew that it probably wasn't. I mean... c'mon. If some big thing bad was going to happen why the hell would someone post a site about it ??
c'mon people....
USE YOUR HEAD
and also ditto what "Yourhighness" said about the American president
Americans are crazy....
Have you ever seen that documentary "Bowling for Columbine" ?
or how about Jerry Springer?? lol
anyway.... smile!
@Khadra
mhhm yes and yes. but jerry is a category for himself tho o.O lol
To all of you "LOLOLROFLAMO AMERRICENZ IS SO STOOPID" people: Please stop for a moment and realize that what you're doing is displaying a broad, sweeping, and unfair generalization. Out of all the people I know who were aware of the Eon8 "doomsday" event, only one was worried in the least, and, well, he got made fun of quite a bit. I know that my little pocket of the country isn't exactly the best test sample, but still, it's something to keep in mind--We're not all raging paranoia mongers.
Anyway, I found this whole thing quite amusing. I don't think anyone should hold the fellow who made the Eon8 site accountable for any of the panic. As far as I'm concerned, it's the fault of the frightened masses if they want to go turn into a bunch of Chicken Littles over every little thing on the internet that suggests that perhaps, just maybe, something might possibly happen somewhere at the end of a countdown, if you squint at this number sideways, or interpret that acronym this way, or read this or that religious text upside down into a recorder and play the tape backwards. Anything can be connected to something evil if you try hard enough. It's just a matter of what you want to see.
Thus, I firmly believe it's not his fault that people are fragile little children who squirm and cry every time they see something they can't identify lurking oh-so-scarily in the shadows. Believe it or not, some of us are taught to grow up, and stop being afraid of the dark. I suppose a few folks missed that life lesson somewhere down the road.
I never heard about the site up until a day or so before the timer wound down. I figured it would be advertising of sorts but it wasn't. I would have put a full page Google ad up and told people to click it to learn the truth, they so would have. Mike could have made a killing.
PS: Whoever it was that said he was wrong is an idiot. I think it was great watching people on forums squirm in fear from a few numbers. I already had my suspicions about how smart the general public is, Mike just proved me right.
Thanks for your comments.
It wasn't specifically some kind of attack against fellow Americans and our paranoia, just an experiment on general internet users. Provide no information and see what conclusions are drawn. It wasn't done perfectly, and I had never intended for it to get so far out of hand. I'd expected maybe 10 small forums to be involved, not over 300. It's all the fault of digg.com and ytmnd.com for broadcasting it to so many thousands of people. Check out the statistics to see what a difference it made.
I didn't do it for the money, and I'm just waiting for the whole thing to die down so I can get my life back to normal.
Always look at the bright side of life... :3
I was seriously scared for a moment to be honest, even though I only got to see the actual site after completion, the information I was reading from other soures really warpped my mindset with the concept of a site that might as well have a "don't push this button" sign on everything. It was a really good experiment to see it unfold, not only from the site itself, but from the second-hand reports that where created in the process.
GG Mike.
ZOMG WTF!!!!
looks up WOW
Dude all i have to say is your absolutly freakin genious lol. I love it!!
Greg's reaction and that of those like him increases the justification for making a site like this. If even one person so mentally unstable dies of a heart attack because of this site, before he can kill someone for looking at him in a way he doesn't like, then this site has done a good deed for the world. But really, deep down, they're not mad because of what threat the site MIGHT have represented, but the fact that they were so completely and totally SUCKERED, like idiots, by their OWN assumptions. The hostile reaction to the countdown timer, along with later feeble attempts to make red dots on a map seem inherently malicious enough to warrant such idiocy, make the results of this experiment a humiliating testament to human stupidity.
Nice. I am in the middle of nowhere [Alaska] for the summer and get access rarely but found out about the site after the fact [zero hour morning] through a /. article and have looked into it since then. Great job x21b.
BTW, I'm American born and raised and use European spelling for colour and humour and all that. It is something I picked up from a European teacher when I was growing up and I just never stopped using it. It is certainly not proof positive that x21b is not from here.
I look forward to the next experiment :-D
- Mist
I'm actually surprised at a lot of your ignorance, people, frankly it is quite nauseating.
The bottom line is, IT IS NOT OK TO INCITE MASS PANIC! How foolish are you people?! Who gave this "Mike" the right to toy with peoples' feeling of security? I'm sure some of you will call it "free speech". I call it a "power trip". Some fanatics would probably even refer to it as a "terror" attack.
I too, of course figured it would be some kind of hoax/experiment as well...BUT...I'm not foolish enough to discount anything...because anything is quite possible.
An' Ziv, you are a perfect example. I hope that the dark "gets" you one day. Because skeptics who learned "to stop crying and grow up" are just complacent idiots who are too scared to deal with the TRUE harsh realities of life - OR - are completely unaware of them. So when one happy "bright" day Ziv, when biochemical weapons are melting the skin off of your body - I hope when your skeptical life flashes before your eyes, you realize that you're NOT safe in your delusional little bubble you've chosen to place yourself in.
(initial post too long, must double post)
Honestly, I ENJOYED the countdown, in retrospect. It was an interesting way to spend an otherwise boring night, after another routine day. I only found out about it 2 hours from "launch"...so it produced more an urgency for gathering information.
Humanity gets a kick out of being scared, that's why we go to "horror movies", ride roller coasters, etc. However, not EVERYONE is built to be able to handle those things...and that doesn't make it their fault. Especially when we live in an age such as this one...where there are far more doomsday possibilities than there are "bright side of life" scenarios.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not the biggest fan of the human race, I assure you. I normally wouldn't try to defend the teeming masses...but just because everything turned out peachy in the end, doesn't justify the means. I think most of you know that as well...but are just trying to sound e-hard by saying..."haha, weaklings, I wasn't worried at all."
Maybe I'm wrong in my opinions, maybe I'm not...but deep down inside my very being, I feel there is a very clear principle installed from whatever program designed me - that it is NOT ok to make anyone fear for their lives or the lives of their loved ones, no matter how "paranoid" they may be.
I won't "congratulate" someone for frightening people on a massive scale. Do as you will.
Well Mike, I admire your work and I was quite convinced it was going to be for the release of Duke Nukem: Forever. But when I saw that the bandwidth was being reaped I knew the timer was meaningless.
But you must realize you have started an epidemic. People all over want to make their own virals. In the next four to six years, we are going to see so many virals and "mysterious" timers/etc. But I don't care because at least I'll be entertained.
Quote: "Oh no! The site logs our IP addresses!.....and every other site on the planet doesn't? Why is this one somehow different, purely because it shows you that information on screen? It's nothing that hasn't been done before - but mix it with a site that doesn't overtly threaten you, as much as it simply chooses to withold information from you, and you have yourself a winner."
The difference is that this site went out of its way to tell its visitors that their IP address had been logged. The only information a visitor can glean from this is that it is in Eon8's interests to notify its visitors of this.
Why would Eon8 do this? Either it was trying to scare its visitors off, or it was simply stating a fact. This "wonderfully inventive page", as described int he article, was triggered by multiple visits from the same IP. If the notification was benign, it could have been stated upon the visitor's first visit, at it's first moment of truth, if you will. But the site defers. As if it were responding to a perceived threat.
I don't think Eon8 can be honestly viewed as having represented a neutral posture, since it did not behave that way.
I can explain the NEDM cat. I mentioned in the #eon8 irc that july 1st was my birthday. x21b (under a diffrent name) stated "Timer hits zero: Happy birthday mtcaptain". As for the cat, I predicted (jokingly) that when the timer hit zero the MEDM cat would pop up. Thankyou x21b for the best present ever.
Greg's opinions are assinine and irritating.
Living in terror sure will help defend me from those biochemical weapons. I'm glad Greg has educated me to start freaking out, further spreading mass panic, and encouraging the hacking of potentially innocent websites at the first sign of anything that may possibly be dangerous.
We have a government for a reason. Inform the FBI of suspicious activity like this and be along your way. Sweating about it won't protect you from the big, bad bombs, nor will it make you look particularly intelligent when there are no weapons of mass destruction to be spoken of, but instead just an innocent website with a harmless social experiment. If someone was able to have a heart attack about this, then I doubt they would've lived past the next semi-truck airhorn honked behind them on the freeway, anyway. No one can be that fragile and survive normal day-to-day life.
Be wary, but not paranoid. The best weapons against terror are people with calm, clear minds, who don't overreact, but instead do what they can, and continue on with life. Being callous and oblivious to danger can be hurtful to yourself--Being paranoid and assaultive about the danger of the unknown can be hurtful to others. Find the balance.
>> The bottom line is, IT IS NOT OK TO INCITE MASS PANIC!
So, mike did nothing wrong. You do realize, this site was minor until diggs and ytmnd went all, "OMG CONSPIRACY! WE ALL DIE FRUM TERRORISTZ". He didnt incite the panic. He started the fire, but other people fueled it.
dood, u got the angels and airwaves forum attention, and that is where i found out about it. dood, i was scared shitless-scared that aliens were invading(scientology) or the world was about to explain..... good job though... looked legit.
explain = explode btw.
just wanted to say that out of 6 billion people in the world..how many knew of this end of the world warning? ..the 1 million+ or so "geeks" that visit sites like 4chan or ytmnd. i sometimes only visit ytmnd once a week, had i decided not to even visit this week i wouldve never even heard of this until i did my once a year "look at random ytmnds and see what fads i missed" anyway..you're all talking to eachother like you're social representatives debating a serious international topic that could've lead to some foreign flare up or mass hysteria. newsflash: you're talking on a 200x200 comment page with 43 comments while im writing this - time to come back to the real world and realize no one knows you guys even exist
If someone were going to make a countdown that would bow up the earth, they wouldn't make it look threatening. They would make it calm and inconspicuous.
The fact that it looked like a threat was proof enough that it wasn't.
Ziv, I've said my piece, I'm not going to repeat it in a different way over and over until this degenerates into a flame war. I will only say that I never encouraged "freaking out and panicking" as you are well aware if you actually read my post. I just don't think panickers should be condemned.
Neen, thanks for contributing to the conversation. Next time perhaps you'd like to build a foundation for your "assine and irritating" comments instead of just dropping them randomly. You don't have to agree with me...but at least I presented myself reasonable. You're no more than a puppy.
"dontworry", you should probably stop making assumptions about people you know nothing about. Your comments are nothing more than failed attempts at insults. Keep them to yourself until thew grow up.
Hmm. I got the joke (it was funny, Mike, and I truly did laugh at zero hour in #eon8 while I was navigating the treacherous chat waters), but this whole bit about eon8 at fault for creating panic is on the same level as getting mad at Wolf Blitzer everytime he introduces the next CNN piece on a possible terror threat.
Mass hysteria indeed... it's time for some people to get outdoors into the sunshine where the happy times grow. It's fun out there.
"The difference is that this site went out of its way to tell its visitors that their IP address had been logged. The only information a visitor can glean from this is that it is in Eon8's interests to notify its visitors of this."
I regularly go to sites that splash your ip address all over them, with nasty "we will hax you" messages all over the place - and forums that use Danasoft sigs...and more besides. In all cases, way more overt than Eon8.
You know what happened? Nothing. Nothing at all.
If you're honestly so worried about people collecting your IP, then making a big deal out of potentially having your IP, then maybe you should think twice about going online at all? If a website owner chooses to make a big deal out of logging something so basic and fundamental to actually visiting that site in the first place, that's entirely up to them...and it's up to you to then go and learn something about the technology you're using, how it works and how what they're telling you isn't necessarily a big deal.
Was the timer going to hit zero and somehow magically deploy a super-virus down the pipe to your PC? Of course not. Were armed men going to burst into your home based on the geographical co-ordinates of your IP? Of course not. Were super-small, yet incredibly powerful mini-rockets going to deploy from somewhere and smash into the homes / offices of all the IP addresses logged and potentially displayed on the map? Of course not.
If someone *had* physically just gone and blown something up somewhere, then linked it back to the Eon8 site, you couldn't have done anything about it anyway, because there was not even the merest *hint* of something on there that you could use to "stop the bad guys". Which is effectively no different from the London bombings, Madrid, 9/11, every other act of nastiness ever commited.
From what I saw, Eon8 *didn't* make a big deal of splashing your IP around - it displayed it in small, grey text at the bottom of the page.
This is not a big deal.
The only time I saw any kind of big splash regarding IPs was when you clicked the "login" box. If you click someone's login box on a vaguely puzzling website, then don't be surprised when a big I OWN JOO message flashes up. But I wouldn't lose any sleep over it either.
And if the tracker map was so realistic, why was Greenland missing? Why were whole chunks of the geography completely incorrect? Boy, those Scud missiles are gonna' miss all their targets when they launch with a map like that.
Effectively, the website took a map, and implied that somehow, there would be some connection between something *physical* happening (flashing dots on a map - must be missiles or gas or something!), and / or something that involved people's IP addresses (logged, sucker!). Yet the logistics of this, the practicalities of this, the sheer impossibility of this idea just makes my mind boggle that people couldn't see the inherent flaws in this concept as something even vaguely rooted in reality.
Looking at it from another angle, you're posting on this site, yes? Because there's no overt warning of ha! gotcha! IP logged! Because it doesn't *look* "threatening". Yet I have a lot of data on anyone visiting this site, and I'm effectively someone who really *could* do all kinds of scary hoodoo-voodoo with people's personal data.
Yet you're happily posting away on here, assuming I'm one of the good guys. I am, of course...but surely a website with genuine bad intentions will look a lot like this? In other words, harmless? As opposed to, ooh! Mystery! IP Logged! Encryption code! Clever snagging of referring websites! Aaah! Big timer counting down to something bad!
....and does anyone, anywhere....ever....call something bad "project z-theta 9"? Apart from Dr Evil, of course!
As I mentioned earlier, I quite happily went to bed and slept through the "big launch", because I was 100% certain that we'd all still be here in the morning. To this date, I have *never* seen anything on a piece of HTML that ever, for a moment, suggested World War 3 (or something not quite as awful) would be the end result.
From what I saw, the biggest push for "omg terrorism!" came from what I assume were 14 year old kids on some of the Ytmnd sites - nowhere else. There's a particularly silly example of this here:
http://unfunnytruthabouteon8.ytmnd.com/
...there's your *real* scaremongering, right there. And even after the complete stupidity of what they're saying is pointed out to them, they choose to ignore the reality of the situation and carry on with the OMG! Terrorists! thing.
...Ultimately, I'm not sure I've got this all wrong, but I was rather excited to see what the countdown would bring. I'm infinitely more concerned about some random whackjob stabbing me to death in the street, than some James-Bond style website.
But I won't loose any sleep over that potential threat, either.
x21b/Mike/paper ghost
quite of a few of you have been saying that many people had no sense of humor, and took the eon8.com website the wrong way. Personally I disagree with that. I only found out about eon8 16 hours before the count down and we started talking about it in our irc channel. Now, we all claimed it was terrorist, aliens, the end of the world, etc, but 99% of it was sarcasm. We assumed it was Viral marketing about some new product, but we were hooked anyway. Your expirement proved that nothing is more attractive than the unknown. As for the 'hackers', we at bsrf (bsrf.org.uk) had a playful go, purely because we want to know what the hell was going on, not because we wanted to destroy what we didnt understand. Remember, theres no such thing as a html sarcasm tag, and you may have misread a lot of people.
"x21b/Mike/paper ghost - quite of a few of you have been saying that many people had no sense of humor, and took the eon8.com website the wrong way."
For what its worth, I never said anyone had no sense of humour - in fact, I've sat out of a large portion of this debate so people could talk about it. The handful of comments made by me specifically relate to the guy who revealed some info on the sucessful hack, and to Greg's comments about the logging of IP addresses. Though for the record, I do think plenty of people got altogether WAY too worked up over it, and that's the angle I approached the main writeup from.
Nice to see someone from BSRF here, though. It's all suddenly gone a bit old skool in here now
Same with bsrf, I suppose. Everyone has grown up, got a job, families, rent to pay, etc. But its good in otherways, we have a senior pen tester, a security consultant, a data analyst, guys doing masters in cs and what not. A little quiet at times, but you get some good rants/converstions going when people do turn up.
Drop by sometime, bsrf.org.uk #bsrf.
s/bsrf.org.uk/irc.bsrf.org.uk/
Thanks, will do
INCITE MASS PANIC! I do assume that Greg drives a Car gets the bus crosses the road if something as Simply as countdown on a Web site can instill mass Panic then i Grieve for the Human race i really do i think the guy was very clever and pointed out things about us that PT Barnum pointed out a long time ago that you can fool some of the people all of the time....
Nice work Mike, you had me worried for a little while,
But after about 1 hour I concluded it wasn't anything serious.
Why?
Well...
1. The site had been online for 6 months.
2. In those 6 months it would have caught the attention of the US government.
And I’m almost sure they did an investigation.
3. US government found it harmless and left it alone.
Oh and I want to ask the people who really got scared, "did contact the US government about the site?"
If not, why not ?
Just my 2 cents...
I simply contacted Paperghost quicker Smarter and you dont have the FBI kicking your door Down :-P
Hey Yourhighness, you know that comment about how the World Cup is safe? Well, the World Cup may be safe for now, but remember that little place called Munich, Germany? I seem to remember something happening there during a major sporting event... oh, what was it... oh yeah, 11 people were killed by terrorists. Just because something hasn't happened yet doens't mean it won't happen.
By the way, I thought eon8 was great. I was generally curious about what was gonna happen. I can see why people would panic, given the fact that if they have no information, people will often assume the worst.
Just an observation, for me, when I heard about it via Paperghost, I thought it would be interesting to do a small bit of research, that is what I do for a living.
I could see where the paranoid among us could panic, this happens if I so much as slam a door.
I can understand that everyone feels that their opinions are fact, though when they are only opinions.
Oh and if those paranoids are looking for something to really panic about, there is this 2000 year old text that you should read the last chapter of: Revelations, last chapter of the bible. Now that is a doomsday prophcy!
..and it doesn't have a countdown clock with red dots on it either!
lol i knew the bible would end up in this mess somehow please Remember people that if its not BOOM today its going to be BOOM sooner or later
after all you seen any Living dinosaurs except on Tv ??
I was just reading up on Eon8, (from lack of else to do) and decided to post here. Awesome article, PG.
Anyway, I wasn't worried about the whole 'countdown - we're going to die' thing. I DID think it was weird that certain people started assuming that it was terrorists going to destroy the world, though. I mean, hello, mysterious website has flashing dots so we're all going to be blown up?
Lol, Mike, you're a total genius! One of my friends freaked-out and sent me a panicked email, but I'm happy to say she soon realised it was most likely a hoax and laughed about it.
Where did you get such a cool idea from? I mean, it's PURE genius!
I have to say Greg, I sincerely thought you were being sarcastic through your first few posts. I'm surprised you didn't commit suicide during the ilovebees countdown.
I also want to congratulate Mike on a successful (and rather shocking) experiment.
And no, not all Americans are paranoid. I'm personally a huge fan of mysterious websites, but always remain on the skeptical side.
Stupid Americans got fooled and now they're complaning about how terrible Mike is?
You morons, way to prove the sweeping generalization about your ignorant mentality correct. If you can't take a joke and a little surprise ON THE INTERNET, then you need to stop being a concieted, afraid, and otherwise completely irrational public.
Look, Alex...I wasn't freaking out completely or anything...I explained already I was 99% sure it was a hoax. You never can tell though.
My posts were more directed at Mike thinking himself so superior to treat people like lab rats. An' just because you guys didn't freak out, doesn't mean some people didn't.
Also, bear in mind the time frame. I myself, I'll say AGAIN, found out about the site two hours before "launch". So I didn't know what the hell was going on. Had I spotted it 6 months ago, or even a week ago...I probably would've deemed it harmless, as most of you did. (or CLAIM you did)
As far as "ilovebees", I don't know what the hell you are talking about, I'm not browsing stupid, trendy, internet sites all the time, this one was a fluke.
And Vex, choke on a nuke you racist piece of shit.
Well, lil' Greg... not knowing a bit of "ILOVEBEES" just means you didnt research about the issue, and just sat in front of your PC waiting for the countdown to stop, and then complain about your silliness...
funny???, everytime you reply, it is more obvius youre still a kid (less offensive than say youre a Moron)!...
Btw, i liked all the mystery around the site, because it made me search and research alot, but enjoyed it!
I thought it was Viral Marketing!...
Thanks!...
"As far as "ilovebees", I don't know what the hell you are talking about, I'm not browsing stupid, trendy, internet sites all the time, this one was a fluke."
...to be fair, the "ilovebees" campaign was far from "stupid and trendy", it was actually pretty interesting:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ilovebees
Actually, "lil" Alexander, everytime I post, it's more obvious the "majority of internet users"(to quote your new internet god) are a bunch of assholes. That's been the result of my "study" here.
I can't come online and post up my opinions without a slew of prepubescent "Mike" fans jumping down my throat. I stated my side of the argument reasonably, no one has to agree with it...but YOU are the one acting like kids when you pop in just to throw a couple harmless insults in my direction.
I can't even leave this thread to die because every time I turn around I've got some new jerkoff calling me an "idiot, kid, child, annoying, paranoid." If any of you dullards even had a braincell in your head and actually READ my posts, it would be pretty obvious I was none of those things.
I posted just for Mike to hear my opinions about what he did, not for a bunch of fanboys to swing from his balls like Tarzan and insult my character. So please, give it a rest, unless you care to present your arguments intelligently.
As far as "ilovebees", why would I research it? Because you mentioned it? I think not. And if it's related to eon8 at ALL - let me repeat myself one last time. I found out about the damned site 2 hours before midnight. Then I went and picked up my girlfriend, I came home with about 35 minutes of "research" time. Your half witted comments are completely irrelevant.
An' Paperghost, my apologies for calling it "stupid and trendy" when I knew nothing about it. I just figured it would be stupid and trendy(as most things on the internet are).
Just checked up on "ilovebees"...yea I read a lot about ARGs and even on the Haunted Apiary...but didn't come across "ilovebees" in my travels. Forgive me for my impudence. =/
"An' Paperghost, my apologies for calling it "stupid and trendy" when I knew nothing about it."
Hey, no need to apologise - and you just gave me the laugh-out-loud moment of the day with this line:
"not for a bunch of fanboys to swing from his balls like Tarzan"
I've never heard that phrase before - if you came up with it yourself, you score six thousand "awesome" points. if not, well, its still funny so well done :D
Greg - 6,000
Fanboys - 0
Greg, I'm glad to see you're posting your honest opinions on here. I don't like other people jumping down your throat for that, honesty is never a bad thing. I don't consider myself superior, I tried a small experiment on a handful of people, it got out of control.
I'm tired of the whole thing. I'm tired of the attention, the emails, the job offers, the hackers, the spam, the interviews from people who haven't got a clue, the numerous fansite requests, people wanting me to upload all the sourcecode for them, people reporting copycat sites, it's too much. Eon8 had nothing to do with Americans, it was about internet users in general, from a handful of forums. I didn't plan to write such a long 'analysis', I had no choice but to do that. It was a personal experiment for myself and a few close friends, to see what would happen. But if I had written that then all those 38,000 people with nothing better to do than flood my site with traffic would have been greatly disappointed. I tried to end on a nice note. I tried to end with a laugh. The fun was sucked out of the whole thing because of a few stupid animations with pure exaggerated speculations, pseudo-scientific evidence and shameless lies.
Eon8 is over. Everyone get over it. So what if Wikipedia deleted it. It's not the end of the world.
I'm moving on, I hope everyone else does too.
For what it's worth, I enjoyed it from start to finish and I wish you well
First of all, I have to apologize for reviving this topic, I saw it a while ago, but didn't post. Mike, I'm glad someone did this, it was worth it. I enjoyed it immensely, thanks for providing the humor. Greg, you provided good arguments and I have to say that it's horrible you're getting flamed for merely stating your opinion. If anyone wants to discuss this further (albeit, that's unlikely), please IM me, as I would also like to take part in it. Paperghost, that's certainly among the most wonderfully written articles I've ever read.
"Stupid Americans got fooled and now they're complaning about how terrible Mike is? You morons, way to prove the sweeping generalization about your ignorant mentality correct. If you can't take a joke and a little surprise ON THE INTERNET, then you need to stop being a concieted, afraid, and otherwise completely irrational public." -vex
...Wow, one thing Mike, Greg, Paperghost, YTMND, LUElinks, RI, CE, and the entire internet can agree on is that we don't need this stereotyping bullshit. If you traveled even a quarter of these internet circles you would know that they have a lot of users from outside of the U.S.
The stupidest comments I've seen here aren't the ones with attacking an individual but attacking a nation and acting as if you knew all along. There were various people in your country that were just as alarmed just as there were level-headed people that slept peacefully that night in the U.S
I'm going to drop my maturity a bit and direct some flames in your direction. I've seen some people I really dislike on the internet (Eric Bauman,crazyliekwasabi,myspaceawardscenter) but you take the title for ignoring an entire international community, way to have an impartial opinion and open mind dumbass.
Now for the rest of the people reading my post:
Sorry for responding to such an old topic, I couldn't resist. I know he probably won't respond but at least his statement was addressed more personally.
My opinion on the hacking and Eon8 event:
I knew it was a hoax, I've seen too much of the internet to think otherwise. Although I liked the message LUElinks left up (*saLUEtes*) , Mike should have expected this reaction. A social experiment doesn't end when it's played itself out, the social reaction after everything is revealed is a relevent part of the experiment.
On a completely random side note:
RI and LUElinks FTW. YTMND > Ebaumsworld. Kenman, I hate you for crashing the Failedfate server. GG, MoD, and Trin = Best girls on the internet. Slio, leave the yuri in 4chan alone.
Commenting by HaloScan
