Qanon (previously) is an eye-wateringly stupid far-right conspiracy theory whose proponents spend hours trying to decode alleged ciphertexts created by the cult’s leader or leaders.
Security researcher Mark Burnett — whose leading work on password decryption and security leaves him well-poised to analyze Qanon’s codes — has done a statistical analysis of the codes and concluded that they are consistent with an English-speaking QWERTY user putting their fingers on the home row of their keyboard and buttonmashing them.
Burnett said he noticed a pattern in the codes: “almost all the characters” in the codes alternate between the right and left hand or are close to each other in a normal QWERTY keyboard. Imagine someone’s hands resting on a regular keyboard. According to Burnett, QAnon is likely simply typing keys randomly with his left hand and right hand where they rest, resulting in a combination of characters alternating between one group of keys on the right side of the keyboard, and one group of keys on the left side of the keyboard.
“The funny thing about people is that even when we type random stuff we tend to have a signature. This guy, for example, likes to have his hand on the ends of each side of the keyboard (e.g., 1,2,3 and 7,8,9) and alternate,” Burnett wrote in his thread.
Password Analyst Says QAnon’s ‘Codes’ Are Consistent With Random Typing [Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai/Motherboard]