Top all-time · #4703
Connor Tumbleson
Personal blog · connortumbleson.com · on HN as iBotPeachesprogrammingsecurity
Connor Tumbleson's personal blog at connortumbleson.com covers programming and security. Since 2020, 16 different Hacker News readers have linked it 23 times, most often “Someone is pretending to be me”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-11-02, and you can follow it by feed.
Too few sampled comments (5) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
HN commenters link Connor Tumbleson's posts on hiring fraud and fake job candidates, and on social-engineering risks and saying no in open source. The comments cite them as examples and related reading.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 5 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Hi, I'm Connor Tumbleson - I blog weekly, work on Cicada 3301 & Halo projects, maintain Apktool, work at Sourcetoad and speak at events around Florida.
Most-linked posts?
- Someone is pretending to be me4 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2022-09-27
- Open Source and Saying “No”2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2022-11-28
- Watching Xz Unfold from Afar2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2024-03-31
What Hacker News says?
Just vaguely related, but it seems that various forms of hiring fraud are now appearing, i.e. https://connortumbleson.com/2022/09/19/someone-is-pretending... In the remote world, it's going to be difficult to address, but it's happened also in the old physical world — albeit less frequently.
Comment linking /2022/09/19/someone-is-pretending-to-be-me/
on “Ask HN: Have you experienced “hiring fraud?””Submitted Someone is pretending to be me as a story · 2244 points
HN discussionIt's likely that there is a whole team behind this operation, and part of that team might include tasks such as "socially engineer XZ project to accept a maintainer of our choice." This was suggested in a different post[1], where there seem to be newly created accounts that came out of nowhere to create a sense of urgency, which might have accelerated the maintainer role transition. [1] https://connortumbleson.com/2…
Comment linking /2024/03/31/watching-xz-unfold-from-afar/
on “XZ Backdoor: Times, damned times, and scams”Submitted The Disappointing Tea.xyz as a story · 167 points
HN discussionThey built their phishing emails using data scraped from public profiles. Fascinating. I have to wonder if, in the near future, we're going to have a much higher perceived cost for online social media usage. Problems we're already seeing: - AI turning clothed photos into the opposite [0] - AI mimicking a person's voice, given enough reference material [1] - Scammers impersonating software engineers in job interviews…
Comment linking /2022/09/19/someone-is-pretending-to-be-me/
on “Human study on AI spear phishing campaigns”Submitted Xbox Hacks: The A20 (2021) as a story · 106 points
HN discussionSome related posts: "Open Source & Saying "No"": https://connortumbleson.com/2022/11/28/open-source-saying-no... , https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33771881 "Open Source Is Free As in Baby": https://danielcompton.net/dependencies
Comment linking /2022/11/28/open-source-saying-no/
on “Just Say No”Submitted Open Source and Saying “No” as a story · 25 points
HN discussionThis immediately came to mind https://connortumbleson.com/2022/09/19/someone-is-pretending...
Comment linking /2022/09/19/someone-is-pretending-to-be-me/
on “Ask HN: Anyone ever get rejection letters from companies they didn't apply to?”Submitted Open Source Entitlement as a story · 17 points
HN discussionI write weekly on https://connortumbleson.com using Ghost. Started as a new years resolution I've kept just discussing what crosses my life or mind. My favorite posts: * https://connortumbleson.com/2017/05/01/the-human-behind-the-... - being an open source maintainer * https://connortumbleson.com/2018/02/11/stumbling-into-a-mlm-... - wandering into an MLM and researching it * https://connortumbleson.com/2019/06/02/a…
Comment linking /2019/06/02/apktool-in-the-wild/
on “Ask HN: Could you share your personal blog here?”Submitted Watching Xz Unfold from Afar as a story · 16 points
HN discussionSubmitted Helping Out Open Source as a story · 3 points
HN discussionSubmitted The Disappointing Starknet.io as a story · 3 points
HN discussionSubmitted How Did Pikmin Bloom Delay Android Notifications? as a story · 3 points
HN discussionSubmitted Apktool v2.5.0 Released as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted Recent JDK changes broke ZIP64 in Java as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted Upcoming APKTool 2.8.0 as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted The Collapse of a Treasure Hunt as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted Dangling Domain Abuse as a story · 1 points
HN discussion
