This may be a bit memey, but it seems to me that the biggest weakness of q followers is so many of them think the "white hats"are some secret canal of patriots working from the inside to bring down the governmeant corruption, so all patriots have to do is sit back and let the "white hats" do all the work...
Besides being backward as all hell, this idea is antithetical to American values and First Principles. Simply put, the founders didn't sir around waiting for someone else to save then from British tyranny, they took up arms and secured their own freedom.
And that's what patriots across the loose coalition misidentified as "the right" are doing, securing elections, running for office, primarying weak, RINO candidates, getting the real news out there on sites like this, etc.
So you wanna meet a white hat for real? Go look in the mirror.
I know, I know, "maybe the real Q was inside us all along," meme goes here, but think about it a minute and tell me it doesn't make a little bit of sense.
Or maybe I'm contradicting the holy scriptures of your Lord and savior Q somehow, I dunno, lol. (Poking fun, not being malicious)
Salt Rotation - There is a computer language "Equation" that will encode/decode your password using a random number. That number is the Salt (or Seed).
You are Salting the equation with a number. It could also be called "Seeding" and equation. A given password will yield access and also give a TripCode. A TripCode is literally a visible UserID that proves the writer knew the right password.
Rotating the Salt, gives a new starting point for the equation, and will end with a new TripCode for the old password.
8Kun experienced this. Someone rotated the salt (or easier yet, the equation) until it yielded the known Q TripCode. They left a few Q-crumbs which did not look right. Then Anons figured out that the Salt had been rotated because other people's TripCodes had changed, yet the Q TripCode did not change. Then it got changed back to the original Salt. Other TripCodes returned to normal and there were no more Q-crumbs.
It was a sham. Most Anons did not fall for the ploy, although a few did. The Zero-Delta proofs were backwards. First Trump, then "Q". Not valid. Should be first Q, then Trump within a minute.
And the Q post should have a TripCode. Q's TripCode. The Zero-Deltas that did match Trump posts had no TripCode. Not valid. Then the Fake Q cried like a baby, insisting that it was illegal to use a TripCode. That's why the new drops had no trip code. Very lame. Never saw Q cry like a baby trying to prove identity. It was really sad and noticeable.
Therefore, the recent Q-posts are all faked at worst, extremely suspect at best. Hope that helps.
Okay, so a poser ran some kind of algorithm/program which rotated the salt/seed to produce a new TripCode and kept doing so until it showed as the old/valid TripCode, albeit leaving some issues/problems in it's wake. The hyper-cognizant (in a good way) anons who pay keen attention to such things noticed the anomalies and called the fake-Q out on it. Said fake-Q tried doubling down on the fraud using lame excuses, but anons weren't buying it. (Mine may be more of an analogy than a translation, but I think I get the gist).
Thank you so much for the explanation.
A year-and-a-half in and there are still loads of things I'm unclear on or plain unaware of.
Yes. Good summary. That is exactly what happened.
Of note: It would be easier to rewrite the algo to produce the result than to try new salts.
Of course, this would require the poser had root access to the underlying server. (Entirely possible.) Which would point the finger at Jim Watkins or some tech at the Hosting Service.