He is a posturing publicity whore who cannot hack shit. Just look at this Tor commits - all he works on is lame stuff, not core Tor code!
It's true he might not be an "actual hacker" or "talented coder", but he might have received the info from someone who is and is not a "publicity whore". Many brilliant coders are not very outgoing, even kind of autistic, and just might "report" their "project leaders". We all should have experienced in life that people are different and thus are destined to play different roles in communities and society as a whole.