The anonymous conspiracy theorist known as Q who posts coded messages on boards including 4Chan and 8Chan might just be typing randomly, according to Mark Burnett, a security consultant who has analyzed millions of passwords (via Motherboard). Q’s theories, known as QAnon, that the Bushes, Obamas, and Clintons secretly run the government and control the media, are the latest to have gained traction by some on the far right. But Burnett says the supposedly “coded” messages QAnon’s followers eat up are likely just gibberish.
“These are not actual codes, just random typing by someone who might play an instrument and uses a qwerty keyboard,” Burnett wrote on Twitter, noting that “almost all the characters” in the codes alternate between the left and right hands, or the characters are close to each other on the keyboard.
“The funny thing about people is that even when we type random stuff we tend to have a signature,” Burnett explained. “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.”
And if Q’s codes are bunk, what does that say about the rest of his conspiracy theories?
If you just take the codes I posted earlier, stripping out all words, this is what the keyboard heatmap looks like. pic.twitter.com/fiU9lbM3Kh
— Mark Burnett (@m8urnett) August 14, 2018
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