I don't believe it is extortion since all he is asking them to do is fix their own vulnerability. I believe extortion requires the demand of money or services in exchange for action/inaction.

Isn't fixing the vulnerability a demand of services?

Doubtful, or a lot of consumer demands are technically extortion. In particular, the model jury rules for extortion tend to refer specifically to property (usually money).

My first question is how "deep" the egg goes down into the sand. It could be a long tube protruding down into the sand.

I wondered the same thing but according to the article, the eggs are pea-sized which suggests they are not elongated.

You can currently set your Google profile to not be publicly indexed by search engines under "search visibility" on the edit page, but don't know if it will carry over once + goes public.

Your post reminded me to turn off ad-block and no-script on HN. Thanks! I didn't see any of that stuff on that site with these on by default.