Doxing the hero who stopped WannaCry was irresponsible and dumb

Yeah, let's tell everyone everything about someone who partially foiled an organized crime operation.

What could possibly go wrong?

I saw that at the weekend. The guy did a good thing and obviously didn't want his name out there.

It was a pretty shitty thing to do.

There is a newspaper claiming he's now working with GCHQ. I doubt such information is true, but given what happened to Gareth Williams in similar circumstances, I'd suggest it's egregiously irresponsible for a newspaper to even suggest it given everyone now knows who he is.

If some journalists were able to find his identity, he can safely assume that the people behind wannacry are also able to do it. Maybe he'll take some measures to protect himslef more now.

I would've liked to see the journalists find the hackers behind this. That would've been an achievement indeed.

I respect the intent of the article, but I feel that the author completely misjudges the intentions and perspective of the mainstream journalists and their readership. It looks more like a culture clash than malice.

> MalwareTech doesn’t give out his name on his Twitter page or blog. There are no headshots. It’s obvious that he just wants to be left alone to get on with what he enjoys – hacking shit, and figuring out how stuff works.

For a modern mainstream internet user, who sees that everybody goes with their real names and photo (except trolls), it's not obvious.

> stalking other people’s Twitter and Instagram accounts

How can reading information that people have voluntarily posted online for everyone to see can be called "stalking"?

> The weird emphasis about his fondness for pizza, and how he works from a small bedroom in his parents’ place? That shows they don’t actually respect him, or what he’s accomplished.

To me, it shows just that they were interested to paint a picture of a human being instead of just a username. I feel that HN audience is very used to talking to someone whom they know just by a nickname, with no personal details or information - but for the general public, the concept of "anonymous hacker" is not associated with anything good.

> Why do I need to know his age, and that he enjoys pizza? Why do I need to know his name, or know what he looks like? Does anyone care that he enjoys surfing? It adds nothing to the story.

Look at any NYT or Guardian longread about a complicated issue that touches a lot of people - instead of analyzing statistics (as I personally would prefer), they always include an individual story or two, with unrelated personal details, to make the reader feel "connected". Only logical to assume that, while to me, and probably, to HN reader, this is just irritating and distracting, that's what "general public" wants to read about.