Bonum Certa Men Certa

Nat Friedman: Frauds, Software Patents, and Mass Surveillance

Satya Nadella and Nat Friedman



Summary: The con man who helped Microsoft promote .NET/C# (inside GNU/Linux) after he had worked at Microsoft, and who later helped Microsoft engage in mass plagiarism via GitHub, is not what the innocent face seemingly projects; Nat Friedman is a very dangerous and sinister person in pursuit of money

THE name Nat Friedman isn't heard much anymore. He 'left' GitHub a year ago and some sites still list him as a corporate person inside Microsoft, though that's likely out-of-date information. Meanwhile, GitHub faces this lawsuit and the official site says: "The Joseph Saveri Law Firm filed a class-action lawsuit against GitHub Copilot, Microsoft, and OpenAI on behalf of open-source programmers." There's more here.



Several years prior to this lawsuit Alex Graveley and his "bro" Nat Friedman (we recently noted that Friedman is apparently trying to hide the troublesome relationship) had conspired to do this, in effect defrauding shareholders like we explained a year ago. It is worth noting that Nat Friedman was an advisor to FTX, so fraud was never far off the radar. Same as the Zemlins [1, 2, 3]. "And he fundraised for Arc Institute from them," a source has informed us.

What is the Arc Institute? Unlike the FTX scandals, especially after its collapse, the Arc Institute isn't in the news much.

Friedman's involvement with the Arc Institute is connected to patents (or monopolies). "You and I both know that he is a patent troll," a source recently told us. "Very set on using AI to collect as much intellectual property as possible" (remember that Microsoft keeps using "AI" as an excuse for plagiarism or privatising the Commons).

"So the Arc Institute is working on CRISPR", our source explained. "Human DNA is not patentable in the US unless it is modified. This "non-profit" is working on CRISPR gene editing [and] Nat is on the Board. Sometimes I feel like he's literally trying to enslave humanity; Own all software, own all art, own human life. Hopefully the Supreme Court will step in once they start trying to charge royalty used to people with gene editing or inherited gene editing like the RoundUp soybeans."

And when it comes to patents, we previously wrote about Friedman's creepy software patents -- patents on surveillance basically. As per this page, Microsoft treats whistleblowers like they're criminals and among Nat Friedman's software patents (remember that managers at Novell bragged they had the most software patents per employee) there's this one which says: "During the course of a computer session, many actions may be performed on a computer. For several reasons, including increasing workforce productivity, it may be desirable to monitor these actions."

Frankly, Friedman and his best known sidekick (Miguel de Icaza) have not been in the public eye lately, but they tend to come back, e.g. as Xamarin and other Microsoft proxies. We still have about 4,000 lines of material on GitHub. A lot of that will be published next year, so stay tuned.

Nat Friedman: Yes really. Philanthropy is mostly bad.

Recent Techrights' Posts

Links 01/06/2025: Bird Flu, Food Price Inflation, and Growing US-China Hostilities
Links for the day
Links 01/06/2025: "Vibe Coding" Turns Out to be a Fraud and Amazon Merits Boycott, Argue Bloggers
Links for the day
Gemini Links 01/06/2025: "Stardust" and Ideal PC Setup
Links for the day
Links 01/06/2025: Windows TCO, Openwashing, "It's FOSS" Still Promoting Microsoft
Links for the day
Gemini Links 01/06/2025: Simplification and Networks Everywhere
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, May 31, 2025
IRC logs for Saturday, May 31, 2025
Google Bribes EFF. EFF Promotes LLM Slop as 'Fair Use'. To GAFAM It's a Low-Cost Lobby Hedge.
So the bribes pay off ("slush fund") and the word spreads
Slopwatch: Fake Text and Images, Financial Bubbles, and Scams in "Intelligent" Clothing
Sometimes what they mean by "AI" is just cheap labour somewhere else, as we discussed in IRC a few hours ago
Why Microsoft is Collapsing (Similar to What's Happening at IBM), As Insiders See It
IBM seems like one heck of a mess
Reliable Computing Means Free (Libre) Computing
Sites that want to promote security ought to deal with the biggest issues
Links 31/05/2025: US Court Orders Sides With RFE/RL, War Updates From Ukraine
Links for the day
Gemini Links 31/05/2025: ARM Server and power_supply Subsystem
Links for the day
Links 31/05/2025: Slop Stigmatised as Disinformation, Catalyst/Driver of "Death of Communication"
Links for the day
Common Sense 101: Do Not Write Blog Posts Saying You Want to Murder Colleagues (or Yourself)
Only crazy people would think stabbings are a joke
Microsoft Bankruptcy
"Microsoft unit in Russia to file for bankruptcy, database shows"
Techrights Does Not Compete With LLM Slop, It Exposes the Bastards, Plagiarists and Scammers Who Do That
People like Scam Altman, still facing a lawsuit from his own sister for sexual abuse against her
Links 31/05/2025: Microsoft-Connected Builder.ai is a Fraud and US is Purging Students Based on Race/Nationality
Links for the day
Gemini Links 30/05/2025: Limmat, Doomscrollers, and Arguments Parsing
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, May 30, 2025
IRC logs for Friday, May 30, 2025
The "AI" (Slop) Bubble Already Popped, But It's Not an Overnight Collapse
where Microsoft put its money
No More Steven Astorino at IBM, Chatter About Weekly/Nonstop Layoffs at IBM
What happened? Good luck guessing.
Looking at Corruption in Europe, Going Beyond the EPO
Expect a new series to kick off very soon
Slopwatch: Security SPAM and LLM Slop for SEO and FUD Purposes, Perpetually Tarnishing the Perception of Linux and (Open)SSH Security
A lot of this Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt (FUD) comes from Microsoft and its LLMs
Links 30/05/2025: Google's LLM Slop Pushers Are Killing Journalism and Shira Perlmutter Fails to Stop Bribed Regime From Legalising Plagiarism (in "AI" Clothing)
Links for the day
Links 30/05/2025: Offline Arts and "Threshold of Patience"
Links for the day
Signing Off Serious Lies With a Statement of Truth is No Joking Matter
It's not hard to see what's happening here
Links 30/05/2025: LLM Slop Already Ingests and Vomits Its Own Garbage, Facebook Exec Admits Copyrights a Concern Too
Links for the day
Mass Layoffs at Microsoft Result in More Whistleblowers From Microsoft
Microsoft's predatory pricing is further
Slopwatch: Planet Ubuntu Became LLM Slop and Some People Fail to See the Immorality of Plagiarism
it lessens the incentive for people to publish real articles
EPO Poll: 68% Dissatisfied With Quality of Slop (Wrongly Framed as "AI") for Patent Classification
Slop does not work, it's just falsely advertised with extra hype (funded by slop pushers that sponsor the major media)
Big Crowds Gather to Learn About Software Freedom From the Man Who Started GNU/Linux in 1983
"It was a great success"
Microsoft Layoffs Again in Bay Area
Microsoft relies on people's false belief that being "in LinkedIn" will get you a job; well, seems like even working inside LinkedIn really sucks and you lose the job
Gemini Links 30/05/2025: Fighting Against the Bad News, and Slop is Dehumanisation Disguised as "Intelligence"
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, May 29, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, May 29, 2025