The 2nd quote is when I realized this article was written or assisted by AI. Not that it's a big deal, that's our world now. But it's interesting to notice the subtle 'accent' that gives it away.
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More seriously, for me it's the "likely".
This is supposed to be a news article, not someone who's hypothesizing about something that could have been. I mean, it either required a great deal of manual labor and technical knowledge or it didn't - no guessing should be required. If the author doesn't know, they can do proper research or simply ask the subject.
FWIW this article didn't immediately scream AI to me either, until the commenter pointed out the use of "likely". When you think about it, it absolutely becomes a fingerprint of AI in this context - it's not just that "likely" anywhere means it's AI.