This message showed when I entered the serial specifically made for pirates. Right now feeling nothing but respect for plugin devs. Next month Imma buy this plugin 100% fixed, need it or don’t need it doesn’t matter anymore lol.
I feel piracy for demo purposes is fully justified if you buy it after you like it. People always say vote with your wallet but it’s more like gambling with your wallet if you don’t get to see and touch the product before you make the purchase. Giving proper demos should be more common with digital media.
On a related note, I’m very glad I pirated Starfield.
I’m thinking that I might buy it once we have creation kit access and mods that add story and flesh out the game a la Fusion City Rising and companion mods for Fallout 4
At that point I’d rather pirate the game and donate to mod developers who are putting endless hours of unpaid time into free mods.
I don’t know if it’s worth the drive space
I had pirated it, in my opinion not worth the drive space. Currently deleted.
I’ve been watching critiques of it, it’s amazing that they made a game with everything wrong
I played it as part of Xbox live, paid $20 for 2 months. Ended up playing a lot more of Senua Sacrifice than I did Starfield.
That price is very acceptable, almost a convenience fee that I gladly pay so I don’t have to look for torrents and stuff.
I would never pay the hyperinflated prices that are being asked for AAA nowadays, especially for digital copies that, as PlayStation is keen to teach us, are worthless.
Demos used to be a lot more common. It used to be the norm for most games. Now it’s extraordinary.
Indie devs seem to be bringing them back. Played quite a few demos recently. Hopefully the trend continues.
Devolver Digital published a demo for Heave Ho!. Worked fine, demo was fun, decided to buy the full version. It didn’t work, none of the UI elements except the back button worked on the character selection screen. Fortunately Valve is good with refunds.
PlayStation making you pay for their highest sub tier just to access demos.
Not entirely or at least in a different way. Steam still has free weekends occasionally on games. Or more likely some publishers still offer them sometimes probably
Imo “vote with your wallet” is more about companies/brands that have proven to do shitty games, as in “don’t buy any more games/dlcs/microtransactions from them”.
Vote with your wallet regards any sort of purchase. By giving money to someone you are giving them the most encouragement possible to continue doing what they’re doing. If you purchase something that you end up not liking, they will still receive your initial vote loud and clear. The gaming industry especially has shown us that companies will happily take both the money and the negative review and say ‘thank you’.
Yes, but as you said, you can’t know if you’ll like the game or not until you try it. It works with standalone games as well if you pirate before buying, but it’s usually not aimed at pirates: no one sane will pirate a game, find out they dislike it, and buy it anyway. It goes without saying.
It’s more the people who already bought games that need to hear that “so you bought the last two mainline Pokémon games and they both sucked ass? Don’t fall for it again, vote with your wallet and stay away from the next one”.
exactly, had a pirated version of frostpunk. but when i played through it the first time i immediately wanted to play the DLC.
so i went on epic games and bought it for full price.
good job devs, that game is a masterpiece and you deserve my money.
To be honest, that would make me pay for the plugin.
Unfathomably based
I had a colleague who would buy legal versions of software and then shelve them while using pirated cracks because he hated the EULAs.
It is also an honorable course of action. Developer gets paid for their work, you use quality service with convenience.
Although it’s not very honorable for developers to intentially create a worse product for people who pay, just to try to prevent a small number of pirated copies to work (which likely won’t actually prevent anything).
Usually that’s not so much the developers but the publisher that the devs have to abide by.
I meant it more as the company. I’m fully aware the individuals don’t have any say. It’s still often an internal decision though, but made by the suits, not the people actually creating the thing.
I do this with games. A lot of games dont even really get a demo anymore. So its gambling to buy it…
I pirate the games and if i like it i buy it. Generally ill keep playing the pirated version unless it has a multiplayer i want to play as well.====================
Edit: Can any fellow infosec nerds chime in and say whether this is readable or not? I feel like I just wrote it incoherently because I was stoned. I hope that’s what happened anyway, and people pirating software aren’t actually this ignorant about network security.
tl;dr: Disgruntled employee wants to make a bunch of easy crypto from the company he hates. cracks contain viruses a non-minimal amount of the time. This turned into a story about an easier way this coworker could be doing it to introduce his own ransomware and get away with it, and then I went into how I would do it if that was the intention.
I have no idea if this is the reason or if OPs colleague really hated scrolling down and clicking Accept. Maybe he just wanted the legit version for himself.
====================
This sounds like a great way to introduce your 2-year-delay ransomware on the company without it being as risky of a charge if you’re caught. Only fired for causing a ransomware infection out of neglect and stupidity if caught, just make sure you tell a few coworkers about it.
Although it’d be easier to plug in a USB drive you found in the parking lot with folder [company name blackmail] which contains “[hot male coworkers name] NUDES.zip.ws” and “[hot female coworkers name] NUDES.zip.ws”
Just make sure you buy a throwaway laptop and install a Russian or Chinese language pack and use that as the primary system language when opening the final source code before you add some CN/RU strings in the file and compile. Use Google Lens to translate in realtime from a burner smartphone /e/OS and location disabled. Make 3 drives and toss 2 of them from your car window in hard to find places a week before, with multiple days between. Then on the day you find yours, covertly chuck it from the roadway an hour before opening in the general area you park, and show up 5 minutes early in the spot you usually park. Make sure you always show up somewhat early. Then “notice it” and walk in and plug it in.
Ransomware starts after a 2 day delay, they being in LE and find the others that were dropped. Make sure to use neoprene gloves, as latex can pass fingerprints through.
Haha okay infosec engineer here… I think this blurb is hard to read maybe a little because you wrote it high and maybe a little because you’re overestimating what the average person knows about security.
Your first paragraph there makes sense but it would’ve definitely benefited from a little additional explanation. I don’t think it was super clear you were referring to an insider threat scenario. People probably could’ve got that by breaking it down a little more, but naturally they jumped to the next part hoping for more context.
But you jumped into a hypothetical alternative means to introduce ransomware to a device. And it’s not necessarily that people don’t know plugging in strange thumb drives is bad, as you suggested in another comment. It’s the jargon (maybe not really jargon but thats the best word that came to mind) you used. You talked about a lot of things a bad actor would do, but the average Joe does not know why you’d be doing most of those things. And even if they do it’s still not going to make much sense if they didn’t grasp what you were saying in the first paragraph.
But ultimately yes, what you said does make sense if you have some Security knowledge (at least a bit more than just basic awareness training) and break down what you’re first paragraph is trying to say.
I can see that. Appreciate you taking the time to break it down like that.
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Unless he cracked it himself, he wouldn’t know for a long time if the cracks were malicious or not. When I found an uploader that had so much working software even the smaller more obscure and niche stuff, I tried to stay with him…Eventually I did malware analysis (hobby at the time) and found out he was binding his password manager stealer to the main program or some necessary .dll that was called my the main program.
That was on IPTorrents private tracker, and he was incredibly highly regarded.
I cum in my pants thinking about the number of different accounts he stole over all those years. I was able to access a similar dumb via ftp and hardcore username and password in the downloader, but that uploader has his bound file so crazy hidden.
The rest was high me writing a story about what your coworker could have been doing, Office Space style.
Many IT security guys go their whole career without touching malware analysis so I’m not one bit surprised.
Your post insinuated this was happening at work
Anyway if doesn’t matter. I’ll take the L for trying to share some information.
Out of “friend” , “acquaintance”, “associate”, and “colleague”, the last one seemed to fit the best.
Maybe shoulda gone with “I know a guy”
lol I still would have gone on the same rant since it was him using cracked software at work after paying for it. No worries.
There’s a FOSS companion app for AirPods on Android and some features are “locked” until you press “Activate” and choose “I’ve spent all of my money on AirPods” as a payment method.
Hey, I’ve been looking for a better airpod app in android, mind telling me the name?
CAPod
Yes, it’s this app, I didn’t mention it because I wasn’t sure if it was the one with the message.
🤣
This is the way
This is the way
Smart developers, the make you feel good about pirating and then purchasing when you decide it suits your needs.
Some people just get it.
You catch more bees with honey than vinegar. Smart developers treat all their users well and then they get the same treatment in return. It’s the smartest way to do things.
Big brain move, getting you to acknowledge that you’re pirating for when the lawsuit comes.
More people need to accept that piracy helps sales in the end, not take sales.
If ppl like it enough to pirate it, ppl will also like it enough to buy it. That’s the rule of thumb imo.
The caveat is that it has to be easy for people to find it and buy it without jumping through hoops. If you gotta jump through hoops just to buy it, you might as well jump through hoops and get it for free.
There will also be people who abuse it for nefarious means as well. Even if purchasing is easy.
They of course use these 2% to justify vilifying the rest though.
They of course use these 2% to justify vilifying the rest though.
This is the method that is used to justify cutting welfare benefits for poor people.
Too bad they don’t see the hypocrisy of them doing the same with tax loopholes.
Yes. Corporate welfare is good for the country, human welfare is bad. /s
Hey everyone deserves some sympathy
Reminds me of everyone pirating the Mass Effect trilogy through 2015 until the remaster released because it was literally the only way to get all three games, with all of the dlc.
I really don’t think this is true though, the cost of piracy is severely low when compared to buying it, I can see myself downloading some shit games just to play them for 15-30 minutes but I’d never buy them.
True. I would never pay for AC Rogue, and after having completed the game, I can justify that decision. To me, it felt lile Black Flag but worse. Could I justify but I Black Flag on Steam, after already paying for it on PS4? Yes. Could I justify any purchase of Rogue? No, none.
Arguably if you completed the entire game, the purchase would be justified
I completed it because I started it (and it’s a shorter game), not because I was actually invested. I’ve played Black Flag 3 times, I’ve paid for it once, and would both replay it and pay for it again. I’ve played Rogue once, and I have no intention of replaying or paying for it.
Its about justifying it to myself. I’m not rich and don’t really have disposable income for games.
If those games had demos would you still pirate the full game to only play a small portion?
I don’t really understand what it has to do with buying the game but yeah I probably would since I’d rather have the unlimited experience in case the game is halfway decent.
I am not a lawyer, but… This does not prove you’re pirating the software. It’s informing the customer (who, as far as they may be aware, obtained the key in a totally legit manner) that the company thinks the key to be a pirated key (of which, it might not actually be, but, rather identified as such by the company or software in error). It is definitely designed to illicit some form of guilt if you did in-fact pirate the software (which is between you and your conscience), but it is not proof that you pirated it. That said, I totally back what this company is doing!
Doesn’t matter how you acquired the key, it’s still a pirated copy.
Do you think buying a stolen car or phone changes that it’s still stolen? Plenty of places also have laws against buying or keeping knowingly stolen items. So even just being informed and you continuing to keep it can now be used against you as well.
That’s the key, though… KNOWINGLY stolen! If you purchased an item but where unaware that it was stolen, there’s no legal issue and, unless there’s something that can link that item back to it’s original owner… I guess it’s yours then.
As far as the digital key is concerned, this is even more nebulous. Sure, their database or software thinks the key is stolen, but that’s just a binary bit somewhere which could, by accident or by a bug in the software, be in error. If, as a purchaser, you were unaware that the dealer from which you purchased said key was selling keys illegally, they is the same as buying a stolen TV from the flea market. Unless you knew, you did nothing wrong. As for the software telling you it’s stolen… again, that’s only what the software things. It could be wrong.
Additionally, purchasing suspect keys is even more legal as there’s no intrinsic value to the key itself. It’s just a string of numbers and symbols. Keep it, it’s yours. Have fun. Play hangman. The company who owns the software for which that key was intended… didn’t loose anything. They still have their software. If the key worked? Well, if the key worked, that means the company and/or software doesn’t think the key stolen or otherwise illegitimate (which, can also be an error on the companies part).
In this case, the company says, in essence, “We think this key is stolen, but we cannot prove you did the stealing. We’re not going to belabor the issue. Keep on, and let your conscience guide you”
Sounds like that may rankle your sense of right and wrong, but, them’s the fact. You have never seen someone arrested for purchasing a software key, nor have you seen anyone arrested for purchasing a physical product they believed to be legit even when it wasn’t.
Uhh… what do you think the notice is telling you…? That’s it’s not a legal copy. Now you can’t claim you didn’t know… this is literally a legally accepted measure to remove that entire defense that you didn’t know. It’s hilarious you comprehend that, but don’t see how this notifies you of it being illegal! It’s along the same veins of reselling a book without its cover and the notice telling you. Of course it’s legal and accepted to remove your ignorance defense. Ignorance has never been a defense and this would be no different.
And yeah people have been arrested for those before, of course I haven’t personally seen it. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen.
Actually, no… it’s telling you that it thinks it’s not a legal copy. The company doesn’t actually know. It’s not like they sit down and write out by hand every key that is created. Those keys are generated by some algorithm. The company can identify if an algorithm was compromised (either the generation method identified or a significant portion of keys from said algorithm being used without them having been generated by the company), or they surmise that a chunk of codes, that had been previously generated for distribution, were nabbed when a number of them start to get activated without the company seeing a corresponding increase in sales. They more than likely do not have an exact list of which codes were stolen, just an assumption.
Here’s an example for ya… Company gives Legit LTD a set of codes to sell. Unfortunately, the thieves seal hack into Legit LTD’s systems and are able to copy a chunk of those codes. Legit LTD does not realize the breach for a day, or a week, and sells those codes to customers. At the same time, the thieves setup a seeming legit web store and started selling their ill gotten codes on that site. Two different customers are looking for Company’s software. One buys a code from Legit LTD. The other buys from thieves seemingly legit store. Just so happens that both stores sold the same code. Now two people have a copy of the same code. Both customers, in this case, believed they were buying a legit code. Both believe their code is valid. Before either can activate those codes, however, Legit LTD realizes they’ve been hacked and tell Company. Company, not knowing exactly which codes were stolen, decides to invalidate the batch… but there are legit customers in the wild that have codes from that batch and there’s no way for Company to tell who bought from who. BOTH customers, at this point, go to activate their code and both are told they’re running a pirated code. Neither of them really pirated, however. The thief did, but the thief isn’t the run using the code.
As such, no… Company and Legit LTD would find it very difficult, if not impossible, to determine who bought legitimately. Most companies, when this happens, would say, fuck’em and let both customers suffer. This company chooses to tell them they’re running suspected pirated codes (though, they don’t know for sure), and, regardless, neither customer would be pirating because both believe they purchased legit codes all above board.
Welcome to software, my friend. :D
The other possibility of course is the developers themselves seeded keys to display this notice to pirates who might not otherwise purchase the software legitimately. There’s plenty of well-known cases where a developer has released pirated copies/keys into the wild.
Legal or not legal isn’t determined by the licence key anyway. You can buy it for real, then crack it and you still have a legal copy.
That sounds like EULA territory, ergo, not defensible in court
Can’t say you didn’t know the key was pirated when you bought it off kijiji if there’s this warning.
It removes a potential defence, it’s not for them to admit any evidence, it’s to destroy your rebuttals.
How can they sue you if they literally say they don’t oppose the use of this pirated serial and it’s okay to do and the software will continue working?
If anything if you agree to this you can sue them if they ever disable this key because they agreed to accept it.
Do you even know how contracts/agreements work?
Do you really think this is a contract or agreement of legal enforceability? Holy hell.
If they actually used this for that reason it would be to merely remove your defense of saying you didn’t know you bought a pirated copy. They don’t even need you to agree to it, a splash screen would be enough.
Look up the legal principle of estoppel. In general you can’t turn around and sue someone for doing something after informing them (in writing no less) that you’re okay with it, even if you would otherwise have had a valid basis to sue.
“my friend gave it to me as a gift. What’s Kijiji?”
And you said you acknowledged it was pirated, doesn’t matter where you got it from……
You didn’t, you typed the words “I understand”, which isn’t acknowledgement of comprehension, exactly the same as it is when you “accept the EULA” after not having read it. The very thing that has been deemed non-defensible for EULA litigation.
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It kinda reminds me how Reaper DAW lets people have a really long trial version that I used for ages and then eventually decided to buy it when I could afford it. It’s been great.
Reaper is great. It’s only like 60 dollars for a personal use version, too. 225 dollars for a commercial license version if you make enough money off of your music. Pro Tools is like 700 dollars for comparison.
Plus there is a native Linux version!
Good on them.
I had a similiar experience with Mount and Blade warband, I pirated to try it, bought it after and when it didn’t work the folks at TaleWorlds helped me out fix the issue. Absolute lads.
WinRAR attitude, I respect that o7
I want that on a t-shirt.
Git Fork has the same attitude. I bought it
The Buckets (budgetwithbuckets) budgeting app is also a personal favourite of mine. Unlimited evaluation period, no subscriptions and even a regional pricing program called “Buckets by the Loaf”. I really love how they go about it
The developers of Just shapes and beats also did this.
Now i wanna buy that piece of Software, so i k ow somebody can Pirate it and does not feel Bad about it.
As an adult, I pay for winrar purely because it helped me so much for free as a kid (especially pirating other software).
This is fantastic. I’ve no use for this software, but I would absolutely purchase it if I did.
For me sometimes its enough if i can get a plugin demo with FULL functionality and without some sort of beep or white noise every x seconds, to buy a plugin if i like it after tests. And for more then a few days. But this is nice too
