I used a few different browsers and compared the raw responses. I noticed when I used Firefox (20.0.1 linux), there was an additional redirect to heapanalytics

I used a few different browsers and compared the raw responses. I noticed when I used Firefox (20.0.1 linux), there was an additional redirect to heapanalytics.com. Using Firefox(20.0.1 linux ), I obtained a valid session. It was simply the login status that was displayed incorrectly. I deleted the cookie from heapanalytics.com, refreshed my Hacker News page and the correct login state message displayed (user name followed by logout link). Hope that helps.