Yeah, it was pretty obvious from the get go that there is no hacker involved at all.
To explain what I did here:
Interesting. So what you're saying is that the 'impersonator' is so strangely good at impersonating that he does the exact same very specific, very weird and very unique thing that you consistently do when writing down BTC prices?
Normally when someone writes down prices they do it like this:
42 BTC
Now when Heavy Metal writes down prices he does it like this:
42BTC
This is of course by no means a unique thing, but you will find that only a very very very small percentage of people use the lower variant.
This is also something that is done subconciously. When trying to impersonate someone this is not something you easily notice as something you'd have to copy or even if you notice, it is not easy to consistently keep up.
Now when we check Heavy Metal's posts before and after the supposed hack, we will find that he consistently uses the lower variant.
Which makes the chance of an imposter infinitesimal really.
I don't take a position as to whether or not this is a scam or imposter, but your assertion that leaving out a space between "42" and "BTC" is specific, unique, or weird, corresponds with any "infinitesimal" chance of an imposter, is being egregiously oversold.
A related habit worth looking into is whether an author puts one or two spaces after a period between sentences. But even this would not result in any conclusion that could be "infinitesimal" anything. It is, however, part of how I can usually tell if e-mail from my ex-wife was written by her (she does two spaces), or somebody else on her behalf (most people seem to do one space).
EDIT: HeavyMetal and supposed imposter both use one space after a period, but something that would lend support to what greyhawk is pointing out is another pattern that HeavyMetal and the "imposter" seem to have in common: whenever using parentheses in a sentence, failing to put any spaces around the left parenthesis (so it is the only thing separating two words). While that doesn't constitute anything to do with infinity, it is an unambiguous mistake (with respect to the English language) rather than a simple style preference, and therefore apt to be more rare.
Here is another strong pattern common to both HeavyMetal and alleged impersonator:
- Formulating
- lists
- like
- this
- with each entry
- starting out
- with space-dash-space
- rather than using the board's list tag
- or one of many other ways to do it
* like this
* or this
-or this