People in such responsible positions are on respective announcement mailing lists anyway, and read about those events (and patch their system and/or take other measures) long before the story is upvoted on HN.
For example, every administrator of Debian systems is expected to be subscribed to the "debian-security-announce" mailing list.
Also, everyone who is interested or active in German net politics is subscribed to the "netzpolitik.org" RSS feed, or visits that site regularily.
Waiting until such a story hits HN and reyling on that seems highly dubious to be. As soon as any important story hits social media (such as Twitter, Reddit or HN), all important measures have already been finished. HN is really the end stage here, not the beginning. It is the reaction, not the initiative.
In short: Use the real network and connect directly to the relevant groups. Don't rely on aggregation networks.
(BTW, isn't is almost comical that the latter, rather than the former, are called "social" networks?)
You're right theoretically but I've seen numerous people on important FOSS and closed-source projects positions actually start addressing a problem after it has "gone viral" on HN.
Don't overestimate people; most devs and managers would look the other way if not much internet attention is given to their security issue. If they notice a report on HN they kind of panic and go in damage control mode, and then maybe actually fix the issue itself as well.
Being vocal on a popular and respected forum as HN is important for important issues to get much-needed attention.
Please note: I don't like that this is the truth but alas, I guess this is how Homo Sapiens works: it's not important if you know you screwed up; you can bullsh*t yourself to oblivion and delude your conscience but once many people know about your screw-up, then you suddenly care.
People in such responsible positions are on respective announcement mailing lists anyway, and read about those events (and patch their system and/or take other measures) long before the story is upvoted on HN.
For example, every administrator of Debian systems is expected to be subscribed to the "debian-security-announce" mailing list.
Also, everyone who is interested or active in German net politics is subscribed to the "netzpolitik.org" RSS feed, or visits that site regularily.
Waiting until such a story hits HN and reyling on that seems highly dubious to be. As soon as any important story hits social media (such as Twitter, Reddit or HN), all important measures have already been finished. HN is really the end stage here, not the beginning. It is the reaction, not the initiative.
In short: Use the real network and connect directly to the relevant groups. Don't rely on aggregation networks.
(BTW, isn't is almost comical that the latter, rather than the former, are called "social" networks?)