> You're practically begging for malware and viruses.

The dark net isn't as "wild" as you make it out to be. Release groups (hackers who upload the content) rely on their reputation and fame. Tracker sites where "consumers" discover content also have reputation systems, where "trusted" uploaders have special status visible to all. You know what you're getting and who it's coming from. If you run effective virus scanning on top of that, the risk of actual infection falls to near zero.

You're more likely to leak your banking details by installing a free browser extension.

> All it takes is one piece of malware to keylog your bank details, and it will cost you far more than all the software you pirated over your lifetime.

A quick web search says the median income worldwide is less than $1,000/month. Assuming retail game prices of about $50, a person would only have to pirate 20 games to break even, even if robbed a single month's income. Over an entire lifetime that person might save $10,000 by pirating.

I agree with the first part about release groups and reputations, etc.

But the income comparison is not fair: it's far worse for an individual to lose their real savings (no matter how small), than for them to lose (e.g.) $10,000 of pirated content. This is especially true for people with low income. The former pays the bills, the latter is entertainment.

How would keylogging my bank details cost me money?

Yeah I'm not sure it would. I'd assume the bank would take care of it.

Key logging won't accomplish anything without bypassing the 2FA

And it's rare to get malicious software from official binaries, right? You got less exposure to malware by avoiding Sony Music CD's and pirating them.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_BMG_copy_protection_rootk...

Yes, it's rare. could you name other incidents where this happens? I feel like this is always brought up in these discussions, but it really only is an outlier. There'S not much to conclude from this.

Feels a bit like an exception proving the rule. If everyone is pointing to the same individual example that a rule doesn't hold, the rule probably holds for almost all cases.

Here is another example of malicious software from official binaries.

https://torrentfreak.com/flight-sim-company-embeds-malware-t...

That incident is 15 years old. I think it's about time we stopped wheeling it out as an exhibit whenever this topic is mentioned. Executable code viruses are not such a big deal these days, when everything is based around web technologies anyway.

There are millions of pirate so you can assume this doesn't happen to most people. If the expected return on piracy was negative people would not pirate. With trusted uploaders you can also reduce the risk further because if they release malware their reputation will be ruined. That's not even taking into account the fact that people already run non-pirate executable code without auditing it from basically anywhere so the risk is about even I'd think.

The phrase 'if you're not the customer, you're the product' comes to mind. I could easily see malware being installed that flies under the radar, and the type of person that runs random executable code willy nilly is not the sort of person that would be able to trace malware back to one vector.

>The phrase 'if you're not the customer, you're the product' comes to mind

That doesn't really apply to the warez scene. People aren't releasing cracked software for profit, they're doing it for the challenge and to say they were the first to do it. It's pure ego.

I think that's almost certainly the case for the people actually cracking the software, but because a lot of the time there isn't like a "Steam Store for Cracked Videogames" or similar for software, it can require significant effort to find the canonical source.

If you know of some common Adobe patcher tool, or Windows activator, and just do a Google search for its name, what fraction of those download links will have a matching hash to the original release?

You are right that, in the non-repackaged-with-additional-malware case, it seems a lot of the guys doing the cracking are just puzzle-solvers. Weeks to crack some Ubisoft DRM but probably never even touched the game.

I'm not sure that precludes that cracked software being redistributed with added malware.

I think pretty much all developers run random code willy nilly. People don't check the stuff they install through their package managers nor the dependencies of those packages, except the most anal ones.

> If the expected return on [X] was negative people would not [X].

Not that your conclusion happens to be wrong, but you do know people buy lottery tickets, right?

Altium is like $8k or something. Unaffordable for most individuals.

Having bought Altium (then Protel DXP) in 2004, and still paying for the licenses and subscription for several seats (this is one of our main tools, running a team now) I can say:

- I most likely would have not started using Altium if would have not been exposed to a pirated copy two years earlier by another engineer. Would have used more expensive alternatives instead (Cadence/Mentor Graphics/Zuken).

- At <10k and <2k subscription this tool is very well priced. (Compared to salaries and prototyping costs). I have also used more (10x) expensive tools and can say in many aspects those are not better. On the contrary in most cases.

- The hobby needs are quite filled with GPL3 licensed KiCad it was not always so. I would still not use KiCad in a professional setting as a main tool, but that may change as KiCad has made huge progress ever since CERN started using it. However, CERN electronics development guidelines still have Altium as preferred option. Altium is just much better tool for complex electronics.

- Altium has cheaper CircuitStudio now as an option, that was a very reasonable compromise last time I looked. Also they have free CircuitMaker for tinkering and hobby use, which I have not used so can not comment on.

Individuals really aren't Altium's target market, though, are they? "I can't afford this" isn't a license (no pun intended) for copyright violation -- especially when there are cheaper or free alternatives. There's free PCB design software out there, including Altium's own CircuitMaker.

As an aside, I've always found software at this price level to be a bit of a paradox when it comes to piracy -- Altium, Autodesk Maya ($1620/year, currently), and similarly priced vertical market solutions are big fish in tiny ponds. If you're in a business that needs Altium or Maya, you're almost certainly going to pay for it, and conversely, folks who pirate software like that almost certainly don't need it. If I ran such a software company I don't think I'd bother with DRM; your true copy protection dongle is (or at least better be!) the level of support you're giving licensed customers.

> Individuals really aren't Altium's target market, though, are they?

So what? Does this mean I shouldn't be able to play with the big boys' toys? I certainly am not skilled enough to get to the break-even point where I earn back enough money to cover the cost of the program.

Well, I suppose it depends on whether you're comfortable with "I can't afford this, therefore it's okay for me to copy it." The rest of my original comment -- about how the kinds of people who pirate Altium and other stratospherically expensive, highly niche software are highly unlikely to actually represent lost sales -- might apply in your case.

For me personally, if I was actually going to be using niche software like that to make things I was going to sell, I would not be comfortable doing it with pirated commercial software for both ethical and legal reasons, and I would look for adequate cheaper alternatives, only moving up to Altium when and if my sales justified it. This is why I don't actually own or use any Adobe software anymore -- it's less niche, to be sure, but I wouldn't use Photoshop and InDesign nearly enough to justify the price of Adobe Creative Suite. And, again, personally, I don't feel like "but I'd use them occasionally and I wanna use the big boys' toys" justifies me pirating Adobe's software rather than finding much cheaper alternatives that I still like.

There are cheaper alternatives now that are decent, but the situation was different a few years ago.

That's what virustotal.com is for!

Which will give you warnings for many legitimate safe executables from "AI" heuristics while not detecting many new viruses.