[gcbw3]

I'd bet that was a bouncer/client set address, for the joke.

Sigh, people probably trust things like this today because FB(whatsapp)/Google/slack/discord forces you to sign up with valid phone numbers and probably expose that as your ID.

[tomjakubowski]

I think the joke may have been by ChrisLMB, who saw the opportunity when he read the unmasked second-level domain in ben174's address.

[hatsunearu]

But the guy's got LMB in his name, what's up with that?

[kchr]

That would be the opportunity, I guess. :-)

[kchoudhu]

Definitely had this happen to me when I was new on IRC.

[nullify88]

His resume has that place of work listed. Of course it could be part of the joke too, but thats elaborate.