7 ms·

Good thing Adobe products are so easy to pirate.

by cde-v 3y ago

sixothree 3y ago
Heck I paid for an old version of lightroom and I can't get it to run.
fnord77 3y ago
are they? I got the impression that the crackz were filled with malware
- mavhc 3y ago
  Who gave you that impression?
  - dspillett 3y ago
    A number of commercial entities and relevant advocates have made the claim for years. It is certainly the case that infected copies of commonly pirated software exist, though they are not as common as some would lead us to believe (at least not of you chose your sources carefully… ahem…). For a little anecdata: I know at least one person who has encountered this, having his gaming machine encrypted for ransom after installing a copy of a pirated game (luckily for him the machine had nothing on it aside from the games and some media he had copies of elsewhere, and the attack didn't seem to get hold of any credentials (or if it did, no one tried to use them before he got them updated)). There was also apparently a spate of pirated copies installing crypto miners, though I don't know anyone affected by that, and malware disguised as audio/video files was definitely a thing back in the Napster era. Another place the impression can come from is that some AV tools pick up on parts of the pirated copies as malware even if they aren't. In some cases this will be because they look enough like it (for instance the installer working as usual then patching executables) for heuristics to kick out a false positive), and some claim that commercial products have been paid to include signatures that match common piracy groups' so they get quarantined & warned as malware even though they aren't.
  - garganzol 3y ago
    Actually this is mostly true. Most warez releases are just fake cracks with malware payloads nowadays.
- bearmode 3y ago
  Why? Adobe products have historically always been incredibly easy to pirate. It was almost an implicit part of their business model back in the day - get the kids and amateurs learning on pirated versions of their software, and when they take it professional they'll buy it. It worked really well. Adobe never really cared about non-pros using pirated versions.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- tstrimple 3y ago
  It's all about where you get your trackers. Public sites which list the software will be a minefield of malware. Private trackers tend to have much lower risk.
  - fnord77 3y ago
    unless there's a way to see exactly what the crack is doing, I wouldn't trust any of them. too much incentive, lots of sophisticated players, not terribly difficult to write something that evades current detection techniques
- whywhywhywhy 3y ago
  Yeah they're not safe anymore, used to be ways to just get the trial and make it work in a very safe way. Now you have to run some unknown crack while it's in use. Seems a terrible idea considering how often the machines it's running on are powerful so juicy targets. "Just pirate it" isn't sensible advice for this software anymore if you care about your machine and its contents.

Good thing Adobe products are so easy to pirate.

by cde-v 3y ago

Good thing Adobe products are so easy to pirate.

sixothree 3y ago

Heck I paid for an old version of lightroom and I can't get it to run.

fnord77 3y ago

are they? I got the impression that the crackz were filled with malware

mavhc 3y ago
Who gave you that impression?
- dspillett 3y ago
  A number of commercial entities and relevant advocates have made the claim for years. It is certainly the case that infected copies of commonly pirated software exist, though they are not as common as some would lead us to believe (at least not of you chose your sources carefully… ahem…). For a little anecdata: I know at least one person who has encountered this, having his gaming machine encrypted for ransom after installing a copy of a pirated game (luckily for him the machine had nothing on it aside from the games and some media he had copies of elsewhere, and the attack didn't seem to get hold of any credentials (or if it did, no one tried to use them before he got them updated)). There was also apparently a spate of pirated copies installing crypto miners, though I don't know anyone affected by that, and malware disguised as audio/video files was definitely a thing back in the Napster era. Another place the impression can come from is that some AV tools pick up on parts of the pirated copies as malware even if they aren't. In some cases this will be because they look enough like it (for instance the installer working as usual then patching executables) for heuristics to kick out a false positive), and some claim that commercial products have been paid to include signatures that match common piracy groups' so they get quarantined & warned as malware even though they aren't.
- garganzol 3y ago
  Actually this is mostly true. Most warez releases are just fake cracks with malware payloads nowadays.
bearmode 3y ago
Why? Adobe products have historically always been incredibly easy to pirate. It was almost an implicit part of their business model back in the day - get the kids and amateurs learning on pirated versions of their software, and when they take it professional they'll buy it. It worked really well. Adobe never really cared about non-pros using pirated versions.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
tstrimple 3y ago
It's all about where you get your trackers. Public sites which list the software will be a minefield of malware. Private trackers tend to have much lower risk.
- fnord77 3y ago
  unless there's a way to see exactly what the crack is doing, I wouldn't trust any of them. too much incentive, lots of sophisticated players, not terribly difficult to write something that evades current detection techniques
whywhywhywhy 3y ago
Yeah they're not safe anymore, used to be ways to just get the trial and make it work in a very safe way. Now you have to run some unknown crack while it's in use. Seems a terrible idea considering how often the machines it's running on are powerful so juicy targets. "Just pirate it" isn't sensible advice for this software anymore if you care about your machine and its contents.