FWIW, using the 'lots-o-smoke = fire' method of research, I trapped all traffic to and from this site from my one computer. I had a normal AK day, read a few posts, posted in a few threads, did no PMs, internal messages, likes, click thrus etc. but then again Im boring and only talk transistors. No russian agents will spend money to get that info cuz, shoot, we'd give it to them if they ask......
aside from pages from AK, I only pulled in content from ads.vb-api.com which was caused by AK. the IP address, even at 24 bit form does not match any logged attempts at intrusion (my router blocks well the script kiddie DOS attacks)
the VB part = visual basic, thats cause for minimal concern but not alarm, depending on who those jokers are as VB is an easy language to exploit and not really used much anymore. It is the engine behind most attempts at excel/word etc macros, meaning open the bad file and shit happens...
so yesterday, when people were upset, I did average innocent AK things and saw nothing of concern. ymmv. do the same thing I did and report back if it worries you.
and yes, if you access AK from work from a *work* computer, the clear text access method may worry the IT department. by that matter, heckfire, so should CNN. cnn is secure but much of what it does is NOT (at work, if I click cnn on the *work* computer which is 10x locked down than mine, about 1/4 of CNN is blockpaged...fake news? ;-) )