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Mysterious Website Actually Social Experiment

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the shoe-phones-and-exploding-wristwatches dept.

MaelstromX writes "For six months a website called eon8 (probably down) has carried a countdown to July 1, along with vague and mysterious codes. In addition, strange code-bearing posts associated with the site were made in various webforums, and the site carried a map of the world marked by spots of "deployment". All of this, along with some apparent recorded visits by US military and intelligence computers, led many people to believe this was an imminent terrorist operation or a massive virus to be unleashed on the web-surfing public. Turns out, it was just an experiment by a 23-year-old guy named Chris from Florida who wanted to see how people would react to an absence of information, and he was disappointed that people expected the worst -- even going to so far as to attempt to hack his webserver and make phone calls to anyone with any perceived tangential connection to the site or its host. A mirror of the site in its current state is available with an explanation added by the site owner after the countdown expired."

6 of 349 comments (clear)

  1. Subtle Promotion Methods... by Microlith · · Score: 2, Informative

    Which were apparently so subtle I hadn't heard about the site until yesterday, when I saw a link to it on YTMND.COM, and I'm online nearly 24/7. Sometimes you can be too subtle.

    This sort of experiment was probably done slightly better by the xbox team with ilovebees.com just prior to the Halo 2 release.

  2. Re:what the hell? by The+MAZZTer · · Score: 3, Informative

    Probably from this:

    http://www.vitalsecurity.org/uploaded_images/hck edeon3-789284.gif

  3. Re:Heh heh by Chubby_C · · Score: 2, Informative
    all this hype?

    this is the first of heard of this foolishness

    --
    - My question is: Can Slashdot be Slashdotted? -
  4. Re:Absence of information? Hardly. by TheRealMindChild · · Score: 2, Informative

    Like http://zombo.com

    --

    "When life gives you lemons, don't make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back!" -- Cave Johnson
  5. Re:Just wait by WCD_Thor · · Score: 2, Informative

    Wait on the site he calls him self Mike, not Chris, where did Chris come from?!!!!

  6. Re:Assume the worst? by Tablizer · · Score: 3, Informative

    I've noticed a lot of milaristic terms in software development:

    * Deployment
    * Launch Date
    * Work the front lines (help-desk)
    * Upper eschelons (the suits)
    * Strategic Planning
    * Go up in smoke
    * Application crash
    * Callatoral damage (software A that affects software B)
    * Debri (garbage collection not working right)
    * Fallout (when bleep happens and the blame game starts)
    * (more to come....)

    --
    Table-ized A.I.