That problem seems like an extreme outlier. Such user protection would prevent "crimes of opportunity". The average person is not going to have a constant backup of HN in case one day they might want to spy on someone's past.
The problem doesn’t appear to be that much of an extreme outlier, the thread poster is concerned about a specific tool. That tool has already downloaded the complete data set, he’s already lost.
And there's no guarantee that service will stay around, or that they won't accept requests. I still think it's worthwhile to reduce the attack surface.
And if they do, they're likely to start with Twitter or Facebook - something useful against more of the population. HN users are still very much a minority.
