4 ms·

The HN account being compromised seems like the obvious explanation.

• samatman 2y ago
  No, this is not at all the obvious explanation. It could, conceivably, be the correct explanation, but it isn't the obvious one. Someone else mentioned two xx in the Medium name, there are two xx in the email in this post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40335319 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40335319 So the existence of another Medium account with one x is a fairly weak argument for the case so many people are making here. I'm not sure on what basis you all are coming to the conclusion you're coming to. Edit: this is fairly persuasive, however: https://x.com/Vjeux/status/1837639825203384412 https://x.com/Vjeux/status/1837639825203384412 That had not been posted when I wrote this, just a brand new green-name account talking about an unused Medium account with one of two variations on the name which Vjeux uses online. It does seem more likely at this point that his HN account, and not his Twitter account, is the compromised one.
  • jsnell 2y ago
    No, it really was the obvious explanation already at the time of that message. You'd already been shown that this post was not present on the author's blog, nor linked to on their active Twitter account. Both of these things were noted in the GP. Whose account is not green, and whom you were implying was making up a conspiracy theory about this post being fake. As for the post itself, it was on an otherwise empty Medium blog (you didn't need to look into how many xs the name had, just note that this blog had no other posts at all). On the other hand, the only link to legitimacy the post had was that it was posted by an old HN account. But it's also not a very active account. It's easy to see why and how somebody who had hijacked the HN account would use to to give legitimace to the fake. Your alternate theory that the Twitter account was actually compromised is preposterous. There's no motive for it, and it's hard to see how the timing would work out (the attacker using the HN account for misinformation gets to choose the timing of the misinformation; an attacker hacking a Twitter account to suppress the post doesn't).
  • talldayo 2y ago
    Occam's razor wins again
    • samatman 2y ago
      Precisely. I appreciate that you understand my perspective here.