I doubt it is an inside job from staff as they would have more to lose than to gain from what I imagine. Although there were a lot of accounts that were leaked and stolen. When the database gets leaked then it doesn't matter how bulletproof your passwords are. You should not follow your old accounts around on the forum and post that they are hacked in random threads. You should PM Cyrus or Theymos, ONE TIME, with proof that your the original owner. You should research what proof is acceptable, but almost as soon as you post verifiable proof the account will most likely be tagged by a DT member, removed from their signature campaign and then the account will be returned to you after due time.
The problem is "due time" can mean months. Some people have been waiting more than half a year with enough proof, and even high level accounts of Hero+ status get ignored. Looks like admins refuse to get their shit together in the account recovery department.
This will only fuel the conspiracy theory about it being an inside job, since verifying signatures is a 2 minute task. Waiting 5+ months for that makes no sense. There's no way the queue is that big.
Considering the people who post about their accounts being hacked more often than not do not provide the right information, or have not read about the proper format for account recovery, I wonder what conclusions we can draw about their wait times/success rate, versus those who just go straight to recovery in the proper format by PM. I really don't know, but I have a feeling that a good portion of the group we are drawing conclusions from are those that have to wait the absolute longest, if they even recover their accounts at all. Bitcointalk's database got leaked in 2015, the vast majority of people having their accounts hacked have nothing to do with that. If people are careless with their accounts, that is on them. Administrators shouldn't be expected to recover accounts 24/7. Just because there is the procedure in place, doesn't mean its a guaranteed thing.
It doesn't really matter if there are conspiracy theories about it being an inside job. Staff don't have any more access to the forum than regular users, with the exception of access to the reports, trashcan, and donator/VIP section. We can't see IPs, Email addresses, private messages (unless they are reported) etc.
