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Submitting your most sensitive financial information into a cracked and pirated piece of software…

• msla 4y ago
  > Submitting your most sensitive financial information into a cracked and pirated piece of software… …is likely more security-conscious than doing it using the Official Licensed Software, given how valuable financial information is and how easy it is for a program that Officially Doesn't call home with it to send it all back home. As long as you're sufficiently thorough about the cracking, of course.
• mindslight 4y ago
  ... that has no Internet access, and never will. I print the outputs and mail them. With the price of certified mail it would probably cost less to pay for software to e-file, however ... In my estimation, one simply cannot trust proprietary software. They'll advertise trust and serving your interests on the front end, and then flip your information to the surveillance economy on the back end regardless. The more you try to avoid it, the more valuable your data becomes. Webapps have led the charge, but proprietary desktop software has the same dynamic now that Internet access can be taken for granted. Without a general privacy law like the GDPR, there is little downside to them doing this - the only risk is that they get caught by an independent researcher, and lose the few customers who notice and care enough. Essentially, since there is no political will for privacy regulation we're left with a low-trust relationship. And since I've got to spend effort protecting myself from the law of the information jungle, I might as well embrace it.