> people are just not nice on the Internet

That's not what's happening here. People in this thread are simply asking in good faith how the server-side verifies the results submitted by the client. It’s a fair question. And an important one. In fact, it might be the most important question when making such a bold claim.

If this isn't addressed, there's no way to know that a client didn't cheat by withholding a valid counterexample. And if even one client cheats, the entire claim made in this 'Show HN' thread falls apart.

I took it to mean that people (clients) would give the project fake data for fun. But there's no statement about how those people might find the project (basically not necessarily people from hackernews).

You both are agreeing with each other.

I have plenty of friends on red teams so the deeper philosophical conversation doesn't elude me, but simplistically that is what it boils down to. Don't misunderstand my comment as accusations as to respective posters' morality. If there were no bad people, would you need to lock your door? So this is only coming up in this context. Unfortunately, on the Internet, we do have to lock our doors, and that's just the reality, despite what society we'd like to live in.