[braythwayt]

There are some number of people who admire the good things ESR has done in a narrow specialization, and carry that over to granting him some authority in areas like conspiracy theorizing where he has not accomplished anything of note.

There are some number of people predisposed to believe these things regardless of who says them, because, well, they already believe this happens, so it's just confirmation of their world-view.

There isn't anything more presented to us than "Eric Raymond says that someone told him, apparently with no substantiation, that 'multiple runs' of this sort of bizarre entrapment had occurred," but that doesn't mean that members of either of those sets of people will dismiss it outright.

Meanwhile, Mr. Raymond's track record on non-Unix subjects like race, guns, foreign policy, and white identity politics are on the Internet for everyone to review and either applaud or boo as they see fit.