[willis936]

What’s the story here?

Conference papers are typically published by the conference months after the conference so that they’re vetted, reviewed, and cleaned up.

[jcranmer]

Traditionally, conference proceedings are given out at the conference itself.

Looking at the conference in question (ASIACCS'20), the camera-ready deadline for a paper is March 15. Most authors probably have that camera-ready version at this point.

[hinkley]

This could just be SOP for these authors, but it's also possible they are worried that the conference will be cancelled, as have so many others. Perhaps they figuratively blurted out their material.

[jcranmer]

The conference is already postponed to October: https://asiaccs2020.cs.nthu.edu.tw/conference-postponed/

[hinkley]

Well, there ya go. You can't wait 4 extra months to break a story. Someone else will beat you to it.

[monocasa]

Preprints are a pretty common thing.