[resonantjacket5]

It's not as nefarious at it seems. The guy/girl just submits three or four stories a day from nautil.us / new york times/ phys.org mostly.

And over time just built up some points. Probably just shot up because of 4 upvotes at the same time.

[buro9]

Probably written a bot to submit all stories from a few top sites.

As others submit the same stories, the first poster has their story upvoted.

Result is that this user is credited nearly all of the upvotes from a few core sites that have content of interest to the HN audience.