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Posted in Deception, Free/Libre Software, GPL, Microsoft, Mono at 11:09 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Series parts:
Microsoft GitHub Exposé — Part I — Inside a Den of Corruption and MisogynistsMicrosoft GitHub Exposé — Part II — The Campaign Against GPL Compliance and War on Copyleft EnforcementMicrosoft GitHub Exposé — Part III — A Story of Plagiarism and Likely Securities FraudYOU ARE HERE ☞ Mr. MobileCoin: From Mono to Plagiarism… and to Unprecedented GPL Violations at GitHub (Microsoft)
> Image: GitHub: Where everything comes to die
Summary: MobileCoin, which employed a person from Team Mono (and a close associate of GitHub’s CEO), has serious accusations against it; as it turns out, GitHub is now looking to make plagiarism mainstream, mostly in an effort to combat copyleft; In this introductory part we hope we can explain what’s wrong with Copilot very clearly and very concisely, then use that as a cautionary tale, knowing past patterns/behaviour of those manipulative individuals who are behind Copilot
THE weekly installment of this series isn’t timed for impact; it’s timed to give way to the EPO series, which is a very high-impact series that will end about a week from now. Then, once done, we hope to be able to rush through with the GitHub series; we have so much to show and to cover.
> “…it’s no exaggeration to say — and hard to overstate the severity of it — that the GitHub management is a bunch of charlatans, frauds, and back-stabbing moles.”
Last week, in Part III, we left off after explaining misuse of funds and misuse of code. Basically, it’s no exaggeration to say — and hard to overstate the severity of it — that the GitHub management is a bunch of charlatans, frauds, and back-stabbing moles. Those are not the same people who created and grew the company; that the new management also has a profound misogyny problem and a lack of empathy is an aspect we’ll come to much later in the series. Even some Microsoft insiders are set aback, almost appalled by it. But they love money, so they continue to participate. Not a novel or a new kind of problem…
This isn’t some ‘low-level’ issue, either; this concerns the CEO of GitHub, who just like the CEO of Microsoft has well-documented misogyny issues. The angle more interesting or relevant to us is legal and technical, though megalomania can be understood in the context of how people treat their partners; “it’s in regards to Nat Friedman and his personal life,” one person noted, as “from personal experience he’s a misogynist”.
We’ll leave all that for another day or another week/month. There’s a lot of material related to this. It’s just as important, but we must tackle one issue at a time.
Today’s focus will be MobileCoin. As Wikipedia notes under criticism: “MobileCoin has been accused of a pump and dump scheme. The integration of MobileCoin wallets into the popular security messager app Signal received criticism from security expert Bruce Schneier, who previously praised the app. Schneier stated that this would bloat the app and attract unwanted attention from the financial authorities.”
> “Even some Microsoft insiders are set aback, almost appalled by it.”
Without going into all the pertinent details (what MobileCoin is and where it came from) we’ll focus on its relevance or similarity to a scenario we have with Microsoft’s GitHub. As many are aware, GitHub increasingly integrates with Azure and Visual Studio, which are proprietary software with surveillance (Visual Studio Code has surveillance built in and a non-free licence). To make matters worse, Visual Studio Code — with help from fools who still put their code in GitHub — now flagrantly suggests GPL-licensed code under the guise of “Hey Hi” (but without any licence notices). A recipe for disaster, sure…
Co-Pilot (or CoPilot or just Copilot) is a lot smaller than GitHub, but it’s important to know where it came from and why. As we noted in Part III, there may be a securities fraud aspect to it, albeit this angle will be dealt with separately as it merits further investigation and understanding of the law.
Copilot is being touted/advertised (spammed by Microsoft boosters in their sites and captured media) as exciting novelty/innovation, but it’s an attack on our community, programmers, and basically an assault on GPL enforcement. It’s telling people not to worry about GPL compliance because the code, which was actually written by humans, is some sort of “magic” created out of thin air.
One of the persons involved in the Copilot attack (because that’s what it is — an attack) is called Alex, who had “a run in with the Monero community,” according to a former partner. “Alex also worked on MobileCoin…”
> “One of the persons involved in the Copilot attack (because that’s what it is — an attack) is called Alex, who had “a run in with the Monero community,” according to a former partner.”
What is it about? The gist: “The token attached to Signal in a way that seems unclear even to people that work at Signal” (there’s information related to this, with good references, in the above-mentioned Wikipedia article).
Signal is not trustworthy, but this isn’t the subject of our series. We might do a separate series about spying elements in the so-called ‘crypto’ community and even in some of the (self-described) “Open Source” fake ‘community’…
The former partner is “aware that Copilot is scraping other people’s code and compiling into a service, claiming fair use…”
At a scale such as this it is not fair use, but that’s a subject for another part. The FSF has already invited essays on this matter as part of a competition with a generous reward to winners.
The short story is, Copilot is against enforcement of Free software licences. We wrote a number of articles about it in the past (along with videos and memes). It’s no laughing matter and it is the foremost threat to Software Freedom. It wasn’t ‘pioneered’ to help developers but to help Microsoft’s agenda.
> “The short story is, Copilot is against enforcement of Free software licences.”
This kind of objective “seems to be a theme for Alex,” the former partner noted. As we’ll explain some other time, it’s the same Alex who made Tomboy, a notorious infection vector for Team Mono inside GNU/Linux distributions. There’s a patent angle to be covered as well (that’s another part).
Microsoft is a prolific GPL violator (it got caught many times), so eradicating the GPL-type licences is a longterm objective. Just so that people can make proprietary software and extinguish Free/libre software used to make such software, then blame “HEY HI” (AI); yes, it’s a legal hack and there has not yet been a court case to test the legality of it. It’s totally untested in courts and we don’t suppose SFC wants to sue; SFC took money from Microsoft for two years in a row. SFC also lobbied very hard against the founder of the FSF, who came up with the GPL.
“Alex has a history with that,” the former partner said. “His company Hackpad is founded on some open source work he did, Tomboy notes, [and] thing is, he forked Tomboy from another repo [and] now Alex has a bunch of document editing patents that now belong to Dropbox…”
If this is true, there’s lots of explaining to do; and it’s “good to confirm my suspicions of plagiarism,” the former partner noted.
GitHub now does this on an unprecedented scale.
> “Microsoft is a prolific GPL violator (it got caught many times), so eradicating the GPL-type licences is a longterm objective.”
“The Monero community is pissed at him too,” the former partner recalled, as “supposedly MobileCoin plagiarized them, but MobileCoin isn’t decentralized”.
There was some digging around all this, asking people in the know. The former partner “also spoke to this guy [scalled] David Trowbridge, who was named in the original demand letter [...] he seemed sympathetic at first and went silent”.
“Gates started Microsoft by stealing other people’s work. That’s what Microsoft still does,” the former partner quotes, adding that “this quote stuck out to me, because Alex’s company Hackpad, was built upon an open source project Alex forked and claimed as his own and has been accused of plagiarizing Monero during his time at MobileCoin.”
At a later stage we’ll show how that’s connected to GitHub. There are also patents; This one is MobileCoin’s.
Of note: Toby Segura/Segaran, Joshua Goldbard, and Chris Toshok… those names are relevant as “Toby Segura, Joshua Goldbard are the MobileCoin guys,” we’re told, and “they don’t like Alex” (who is now at Microsoft).
> “GitHub is no longer controlled by the people who ran it for its first decade. The mission of GitHub isn’t the same, either.”
“Chris Toshok is a friend of Nat [Friedman] and Alex [and] he said something to the effect of Alex not being at parties for the past few years, claiming they don’t hang out with him because he’s “mentally ill” and everyone knows it…”
“Chris said he hadn’t seen Alex at Nat’s parties at his house in a few years and it was probably because Alex is crazy, which I doubt, because Nat and Alex talked on the phone when we were together and Alex had been out of SF for several years…”
Either way, it looks like there’s a patch of skulduggery there. Some of the upcoming parts were already alluded to above. We expect to continue next Monday if not earlier. There’s a lot more in store. Remember who controls GitHub and remember that history/track record counts (repeat offenders). GitHub is no longer controlled by the people who ran it for its first decade. The mission of GitHub isn’t the same, either. █
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