The ARS piece set off the shit storm.
It is a solid piece, if you consider the comments.
Conspiracies or no conspiracies, TC hadn't been regularly updated in awhile. Given the amount of ciphers it supported, more regular updates or patches would have been the norm.
Either TC's website or signing key were compromised, or the devs have decided to call it a day awhile back and they decided to make it public by saying "hey, we ain't developin' this no more, give us a break with the screaming flames on fora... we quit last year, here's our two week's notice... 52 weeks late." That sort of thing.
Happens all the time.