Have you ever worked for an org that used cracked software?

Posted by Ok_Exchange_9646@reddit | sysadmin | View on Reddit | 354 comments

If so, what software did they used cracked? Did you end up ransomware'd or infected with a worm or some other kind of malware?

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354 Comments

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Immediate_Tree7918@reddit

Once I was helping someone make a part catalog, they were using a cracked version of Corel Suite for it. I Normally use Adobe CC, it was a bad experience. They didn't have the pc connected to the pc, I connected it without thinking anything and then it crashed. I couldn't use anything. LMAO

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syslagmin@reddit

Yeap - Adobe. You guess why though.

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Sengfeng@reddit

WinZip, WinRAR were both keygen-licensed at a place I used to work at, along with Windows deployed all with the same key. We had a disgruntled programmer leave, and ended up with a BSA audit shortly after. That was not the funnest thing ever. "We bought that" "Do you have a receipt?" "No." "Then buy it again!"

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malikto44@reddit

I'm sure the programmer that left decided to drop a dime. I have been through a number of audits, all happening fairly quickly after a disgruntled employee ragequits or hits the door. The most notable as a business where the previous guy shredded all the license paperwork (receipts, invoices), just out of spite. Thankfully the business used a VAR, so all the stuff he destroyed, I was able to get copies of from the VAR. I also noticed a bunch of rogue WinRAR copies in an unlicensed or a cracked state, so the VAR got me licenses at a surprisingly good price to cover more than the number of PCs at the site. Of course, an audit happened, and after legal gave the approval, I sent the PDF copies, and all was in order. I have a zero tolerance for piracy at the office. Mainly because all it takes is one guy running Solidworks on their own subscription key on a work computer, and all Hell can break loose. I already deal with rogue vendors demanding SAM audits, and I send them packing by telling them that a veiled legal threat means all business with the vendor will cease, and that I work with our current VAR to do scheduled true-ups to make sure the CAL count is always up to date. I also don't want to wind up on a witness stand or have to deal with a formal motion of discovery. I spent way too much of my working time working on requests for legal holds, subpoenas, and FOIA requests, much less being dragged to a witness stand to be asked about the MSP's screw-ups.

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russr@reddit

I worked at a company that actually would buy WinZip licenses, and I asked why the hell would you do that when seven zip is free does everything and more and does it better?

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zipline3496@reddit

Because the developer of 7zip is headquartered in Russia? At least that’s why our security team denied it. They’re not super interested in entertaining any software from a country that takes pride in waging cyberwarfare on the US.

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russr@reddit

It's open source.... Anyone can see the code

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zipline3496@reddit

Doesn’t really matter to the government, our other insured, and our security team. We don’t even onboard open source software without a licensed model with company support. Not my choice here just their reasoning.

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OptimalCynic@reddit

Ugh, really? Now I'm going to have to find an alternative

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rainformpurple@reddit

Because paid software is more betterer than free, probably. My previous boss thought like that. My current boss too, to an extent, but at least he's willing to try FOSS alternatives as long as I'm implementing them. From a corporate pov I get it, if you have issues with a paid product, usually there's some form of official support tacked on, whereas with FOSS you're your own support and/or have to rely on a community that may or may not exist.

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Sengfeng@reddit

Not to mention, we have developers that live in their own wild-wild west world. They dick around installing things like Oracle Java, Oracle Virtualbox, etc. I've complained to management about this 100 times, telling them it's only a matter of time before their licensing department decides to follow up on the phone-home telemetry they've known to use.

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turras@reddit

Depends on the country but most places you have to entrap yourself by responding to a request, they can't use their telemetry alone

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raziel7893@reddit

All these things should be ok with the current version, should it? I thought they reverted that licensing fuck up? On virtualbox: just never install the usb package

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GeekTX@reddit

Well ... back in the days of PWA (Pirates with Attitude), CDC (Cult of the Dead Cow), and a few other groups this used to be commonplace. When you own the first CD burner in 250 miles any direction ... you wind up getting some cease-and-desist letters. You would be amazed at how much was available and how much you could stuff onto a CD ... and just how much people would pay for a pre-burned CD media for educational purposes only and not for data storage. Some called it warez some called it piracy but some of us called it software liberation.

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Frothyleet@reddit

When it came to portable storage, I was on 3.5" floppies for a relatively long time, skipping your Zip disks and their contemporaries (like most people, I think? I have seen them in the wild very few times). Dude, going from 1.44MB of storage to 630MB of storage on a CD... it was earth shattering. This frigging little disc with almost half as much space as my entire (premium) 5400RPM PATA HDD? Man, what a trip. It was real freedom just as long as MOM NO DON'T PUT IT FACE DOWN WHAT ARE YOU DOING

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gjpeters@reddit

New optical drives are coming that can store hundreds of terabytes, possibly petabytes per disc. It's really days, but the tech is there.

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Frothyleet@reddit

You talking about holographic storage? I'm sure there's stuff coming but I remember getting excited about that reading about it in Popular Science back in the 90s.

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gjpeters@reddit

No, this is recent. I saw a youtube short, but here is a news article I've picked at random after a quick search using 'optical' in the search terms. https://www.itbrew.com/stories/2024/03/01/scientists-create-1-6-petabit-optical-storage-disc It turns out that it's a petabit, not petabyte.

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Frothyleet@reddit

I'd be curious to see what the R/W performance actually was there.

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GeekTX@reddit

ROFL ... with memories like that and I am still gonna say ... you're still wet behind the ears. My first HDD was a 5MB MFM drive ... speeds were calced in reads/writes per minute not second. :D That was also back when had to park drives manually or risk damage by simply moving the PC. As I am celebrating my 55th circle around the giant ball of death today and reflect on my 40+ years in the industry ... holy fuck has it been one hell of a ride. I've been involved in and seen/done more shit than most today could even fathom. It has been an honor privilege to have this kind of career longevity in an area that I love and am uber passionate about.

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Frothyleet@reddit

Oh for sure I'm basically a zoomer. The biggest floppies I ever used were 5.25" and that was just in my school's donated Apple IIe lab!

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GeekTX@reddit

I worked for a company that had a 5MB drive that was either MFM or RLL and was the size of a coffee table. You would park the heads then you could swap the platters out. For us it was decoration, but it hadn't been out of service very long when I arrived there in the mid-90's.

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GeekTX@reddit

ROFL ... with memories like that and I am still gonna say ... you're still wet behind the ears. My first HDD was a 5MB MFM drive ... speeds were calced in reads/writes per minute not second. :D That was also back when had to park drives manually or risk damage by simply moving the PC. As I am celebrating my 55th circle around the giant ball of death today and reflect on my 40+ years in the industry ... holy fuck has it been one hell of a ride. I've been involved in and seen/done more shit than most today could even fathom. It has been an honor privilege to have this kind of career longevity in an area that I love and am uber passionate about.

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AmateurishExpertise@reddit

I remember inheriting my first tackle box full of Amiga floppies. Gahhh, the good old days. INFORMATION WANTS TO BE FREE! HACK THE PLANET! WOO!!!

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foxbones@reddit

I used to love the animations and midi music from various warez and cracking tools..Spent a lot of time on IRC F-Servs.

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GeekTX@reddit

heh ... I even ran a few BBS's before those days too. Life was sure simpler back then.

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foxbones@reddit

Hahah I remember waking up at 6 AM to dial into a BBS to play Legend of the Red Dragon text MUD before anyone else woke up. I was always murdered in the inn overnight.

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mythias@reddit

I remember going out to the end of the driveway to where the phone line termination block for my little area was located, pry it open, identify the pair that belonged to my neighbor, switch them for mine, and then call Florida BBSs from Oregon and download as much as I could in the time I had. I was so lucky to never get caught though I'm sure my neighbors were very confused.

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kingtj1971@reddit

Honestly, no - not really. We had a ridiculous situation once, though, where we were trying to figure out a way to do disaster recovery with rapid failover for VMWare ESXi. We owned Veeam backup software, which among other things, advertised itself as a cheaper work-around to buying all the high dollar add-ons for VMWare like the "vmotion" stuff that lets you move virtual machines from system to system. Problem was, we needed a way to test some of it out and didn't own another VMWare ESXi license to spin up a server in our other location just to run it for a while and see how it worked or didn't work for us. (We had concerns about limited Internet bandwidth possibly making the whole project a no-go, but there was a lot to test. Potentially, it would have let us keep a synced VM at both locations for a selected server/application or two, even if not everything....) The short story? Some 30 day trial wasn't going to really be sufficient. But I thought I found a good solution. There was a guy on eBay selling his ESXi server licenses off decommissioned boxes at his university. With the original hardware getting scrapped, it seemed logical it'd be technically legal to just repurpose one of them on one of our servers, and it let him make a few bucks recycling the stuff. So I paid him and he emailed over photos of the key code. Set it up and it worked great! But a month or so later? The head of I.T. started getting calls from VMWare, threatening us about running an illegal license and demanding we pay up some huge price to "get legal". Seems all their stuff "phones home" now and then, and they saw our licenses change to no longer match what they had on file for our company as purchasing from them. My boss was pissed, but not at me so much as at VMWare for being that petty/greedy when it's not like we just ran some keygen and made up a fake license code. We tried to do something sensible.... I wound up having to shut down the server and scrap the project, and last I heard? They told VMWare to shove it and migrated everything to run in Hyper-V.

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Adventurous_Pause087@reddit

uncheck Join Customer Experience program!

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nocommentacct@reddit

dang. why not just isolate that host from the internet anyways? put all the vm's on a vlan that has internet connection but not the esxi host? isn't that pretty standard practice?

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kingtj1971@reddit

The ESXi host would need Internet connectivity to install update patches and upgrades for itself though, right? I mean, unless you go to all the trouble of doing those manually of a USB thumb drive you insert after downloading them using a different box or something along those lines? If you had several ESXi servers, then you probably use vCenter as the central management console for them and it runs as a VM on one of them. But this was a smaller environment than that.

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Lughnasadh32@reddit

Yes. One user even infected the network with ransomware from download software from Russian pirate sites (he was Russian).

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slow_down_kid@reddit

Funny, I have also witnessed a Russian employee download cracked software from a Russian pirate site and infect their network with a virus. I don’t think it was Solidworks, but a very similar program

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ToTallyNikki@reddit

I once had a Russian sysadmin chat with whoever ran some ransomware thing in Russian, he got the system released for free.

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raziel7893@reddit

Yeah open secret. If you can prove with passport that you are russian, almost all ransomware grouped will release you for free. If I recall correctly a way to make Russia officials Not give a fuck about what they do, as long as it is outside of the country or does not involve Russians

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raaazooor@reddit

Several russian ransomware groups also work as "govt contractors" for "IT Security". On their own "free time", as long as they do not cause damage to the country or close allies, is "free for all".

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MongoloidAu@reddit

That’s very interesting, any source on that? I’d like to read more!

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JeanParker@reddit

https://blog.sonicwall.com/en-us/2024/06/strelastealer-resurgence-tracking-a-javascript-driven-credential-stealer-targeting-europe/

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techw1z@reddit

ofc not, it's bullshit. the part about not being allowed to affect russian computers is true tho and the same is true for many lawless countries like iran, irak, libya and many others. don't hurt your own country and they won't go after you...

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Ok_Exchange_9646@reddit (OP)

lmao WHat software did he download?

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Lughnasadh32@reddit

IIRC - It was called Solidworks.

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Ssakaa@reddit

Technically Comcast got a C&D from Nintendo, and then just doubled up with it as a CYA for themselves. They don't *really* care unless someone really pushes the topic, beyond the CYA. But... Nintendo, Sony, and Disney? They push the topic.

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Lughnasadh32@reddit

I am aware of their practices. Letter was from Comcast with a copy of the letter they received from Nintendo. Of course, the employee only got a slap on the wrist for both occasions. He is still there and I was laid off last January. However, I am at a much better place now, so no complaints.

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12312egf2323423@reddit

lol

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garenp@reddit

At my current employer we have an ancient system that only exists to run a very specific, very old compiler version (\~30-years old), that the original vendor has lost the ability to generate licenses for (acquired multiple times, they literally lost the knowledge/ability to do it for our ancient version!). They have explicitly given us permission to crack it for continued use.

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Tzctredd@reddit

Yeah, but that's different. I know of situations in which some companies helped to run their software in situations in which it shouldn't be run otherwise.

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thecomputerguy7@reddit

That’s actually pretty cool

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Tzctredd@reddit

Nope. Fortune 100 ones only. Sorry.

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no_regerts_bob@reddit

its been some years but I used to work for a shitty MSP that supported a lot of little businesses and some of them would be running cracked versions of Adobe products, Office, Autocad, etc. They did have issues with malware and systems crashing a lot. But they also used cheap ass old equipment so that could have been part of it too. Between the downtime, lost work, effort to find working cracks they probably spent more money trying to avoid paying for their tools than if they'd just have purchased them.

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chefmattmatt@reddit

That was always killed me is companies trying to squeeze the life out of 9+ year old computers spending more in a few months trying to "make it faster" than it would take to replace.

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turras@reddit

I mean a bit more ram and an ssd sure, not much else can be done

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chefmattmatt@reddit

They want it to be done without an extra equipment too. Let pull out the magic wand poof it's faster. Some people want blood from stone.

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turras@reddit

You'd be surprised how much you can save and how quick and easy it is to crack stuff, I run all crack at home, easy game for office suite and Adobe suite etc

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epicbunty@reddit

Situations like that are a complete shitshow.

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Ssakaa@reddit

They also spent more money cleaning up the mess instead of investing that time maintaining their environment to prevent the mess.

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imabev@reddit

Maybe a Police Department. Windows. And maybe their response was "what are they going to do? Arrest us?" In fairness the current leadership wasn't directly responsible.

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gjpeters@reddit

"The current leadership" is that code for the republicans were in power? /jk I'm not from the US, so I'm not aware of the structure of law enforcement or those responsible.

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epicbunty@reddit

Hahaha that's funny

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Vulperffs@reddit

Maybe 🤣 who knows

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ElevenNotes@reddit

I have clients with millions of dollars in unlicensed software in use. Entire vSphere farms, no license. Thousands of RDP sessions, no RDS cal.

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turras@reddit

I was wondering how easy server 2022 and SQL could be installed with no license?

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ElevenNotes@reddit

Very easy. You need a KMS and a single serial for MSSQL, all publicly availble. You can check my [KMS image](https://hub.docker.com/r/11notes/kms) to see how easy it is.

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npcadmin@reddit

Servers with only 1 RDS call and license. MS do not count or stop others...

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turras@reddit

This is the way

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turras@reddit

(100 user 10mill company) someone submitted a ticket or straight reported us on AutoCAD Pro or whatever the expensive one was 10 years ago, we had office pro with visio cracked for all users, photoshop, anyone who needed to open a PDF had acrobat Pro and we had lots of AutoCAD installs etc, never got any virus or anything but there was 2 of us and we'd both double check cracks on laptops off the network etc, worked perfectly But after the letter from autodesk the owners panicked and we bought office and auto desk and Adobe products, though only spent about £30k In reality we still didn't have CALs or some PCs licenced correctly, just reused oem keys to put pro on home etc, way over the user payment for anti-virus and latterly 5x on the O365 licence after 2010 finally stopped working years after end of life, I was actually just looking at how easy it is to install server 2022 and SQL because free SQL is running out of space We used to get SAM audit emails but we'd just reply on headed paper saying we had licenses suitable for our usage, we did run an autocad scan once but just turned off PCs until it only showed the licences we paid for a decade ago

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jacksbox@reddit

I worked somewhere once that had a special VLAN with a server called "Jesus". I eventually asked what the deal with that whole thing was. A senior admin explained that it was hosting a license server that was MAC locked, if ever they got into trouble because they needed to burst (headcount I guess), they would just point some workstations at Jesus and he would double our licenses.

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_BoNgRiPPeR_420@reddit

Heh, people like this is why companies still insist on physical license dongles. Not like those can't be copied, too, but it requires some effort.

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uninspired@reddit

I used to work at a studio that we had licensed software (dongle type) that wouldn't work so I grabbed a cracked version. I figured we wouldn't get in trouble since we'd actually paid for it but the cracked version worked consistently whereas the licensed copy crapped out all the time.

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404_GravitasNotFound@reddit

I can't believe it, someone mentioned using cracked software in r/sysadmin without being downvoted to infinity.... The end times are upon as

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_BoNgRiPPeR_420@reddit

I mean, if the license mechanism is so crap you can't use the product you've paid for, that's a problem. At the end of the day, a sysadmins job is to make sure things are working. I personally wouldn't use cracked software because it's quite the risk. Anyone who is smart enough to understand assembly language and write software that bypasses licensing is sure as shit smart enough to drop some malicious code in there, too. I remember back in the days of Warez sites when I was young, there was a popular product called Armadax keylogger or something similar. It would attach itself to a binary easily and you could then pack it with UPX to hide from antivirus. We didn't have EDRs back then, it was all signature based. I could have easily uploaded a "cracked" copy of a popular software and keylogged hundreds, if not thousands of people.

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uninspired@reddit

Oddly enough, we were under annual MPAA audits and the machines couldn't have network access. It was legacy DVD mastering software (we mostly made content for Netflix and streaming but also mastered Blu-ray and DVD because with the "long tail" it was easy for us to package up DVD). It was stupid, but I was running solo in a high-pressure environment.

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ilrosewood@reddit

Same - years ago I cracked some software because the dongle detection was such shit. We always paid and were happy with the software. A couple of times we told them what we did to try to get them to fix it. They were fine since we were in good standing.

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AtlanticPortal@reddit

That’s actually another reason why they’re pushing towards SaaS or at least online telemetry continuously on.

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segagamer@reddit

Out of curiosity, wouldn't just DD'ing the USB dongle work? I don't own anything licenced this way so I've never had the "opportunity" to try it.

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OptimalCynic@reddit

No, they're more sophisticated than that. Most of them can be cloned though, although it's risky

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telestoat2@reddit

Maybe they don’t work as a storage device. Maybe need some ever so much more special driver.

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Celebrir@reddit

This is the first time I'm hearing of this. What does the concept look like? What is MAC locked? The license? I'm confused.

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jacksbox@reddit

Exactly, the license was bound to the MAC address of the physical NIC. Very easy to change a MAC address though. And as long as you're not on the same VLAN, it's perfectly fine for 2 servers to have the same MAC address.

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TheFluffiestRedditor@reddit

Not on the same layer two collision domain, to be precise.

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Frothyleet@reddit

Technically we are talking about the boundaries of a broadcast domain. Unless you are on an unswitched (hub) network, every switchport is an independent collision domain.

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Existential_Racoon@reddit

Man I had to do this once. POS hardware shit the bed, got it running elsewhere but it wouldn't do the thing cause mac. Company was out of biz so we couldn't get it fixed. And adjust the vm MAC and golden.

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alexforencich@reddit

MAC locked as in the licenses are tied to one of the machine's MAC addresses. If you put the license server software and license files on a different computer, the licenses can't be used. But, these sorts of things tend to be relatively primitive, really more of a deterrent than anything else.

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Fit-Caramel-2996@reddit

Yeah, and honestly, as part of a company who did enterprise on prem deployments, I learned that the deterrents are not even really what you should care about as a company anyway. The tldr of license checks is that the people who would cheat you on them are not the customers you want to chase after anyway so it is not worth it to spend any more than a trivial amount of time to put in the most basic deterrent. In our case we put in a dirt simple http call in our source available product that could be commented out in one line and easily recompiled without it

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datanut@reddit

They need to run to identical copies of the license server, so identical the MAC address was identical on both, which meant that they needed to operate two isolated networks to double their effective license count.

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technobrendo@reddit

It has a dongle that was registered to the MAC address of the NIC perhaps, I'm really not sure

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anonclub@reddit

LOL OMG YeS!!!!!!! And the funny thing is that it was a Security company and the dept I worked in was Anti Piracy and all our software, especially the OS was all cracked!! And the IT guys at the time were pretty proud of themselves for having saved so much money! This was back in like 2008ish..... But I never saw any viruses or issues while I was there.

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Siphyre@reddit

Not quite cracked, but I had a boss that thought we could pay for a single o365 account and install o365 suite on 5 computers (different users) per account. I explained to him that it didn't work like that and we would get bit in the ass if audited. He insisted on brushing it away and continued with that method. They are probably at about 30-50 workstations done that way now over the past decade. Yeah, I reported it recently as I've been gone long enough for me to not catch flak for it.

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No-Combination2020@reddit

When Microsoft first started offering 365 that's exactly the way it worked. Whole org were buying one license per 5 computers. That went on for almost a year and then one day Microsoft flipped a switch that watched for simultaneous users per license and killed all the sessions and made you relog. It's became such a hassle that it ended the problem.

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Siphyre@reddit

They solved this by keeping the same user logged in, but used local accounts. It hardly ever affected them except for some people seeing the Founder's personal documents that got cloud synced.

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hank_normie@reddit

Most of our servers and workstations run a cracked version of Ubuntu

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WilfredGrundlesnatch@reddit

I have. When you're dealing with one-of-a-kind industrial equipment that is run by a Windows 95 box, you do what you have to to keep it up and running.

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dc0de@reddit

Worked for a company that purchased used routers off of eBay. Ransomware twice, approx 3 months apart. Still haven't learned.

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nocommentacct@reddit

what are the chances you think it's really from the used routers? i buy used networking equipment off ebay fairly often and never had a problem. never a router though.

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dc0de@reddit

https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2024/05/counterfeit-cisco-gear-ended-up-in-us-military-bases-used-in-combat-operations/ This is why.

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FrankNicklin@reddit

A client of ours was using some hacked software. I was installing a brand new network with new DC and Unifi kit. We supplied a new laptop and one of the staff asked me to install this software. We had also updated the AV security and when opening the software the AV threw up tons of warnings, deleted various files stopping the install. I refused to add the laptop to the domain and also refused to even attempt to install the application. 3 weeks later they bought a copy.

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Serious-Wrangler420@reddit

Is this even possible today, with everything being a subscription?

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Ssakaa@reddit

There's still plenty of stuff with 5 and 6-figure per seat costs that aren't.

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FullForceOne@reddit

Can confirm. We have some USB hasps worth more than the server rack they’re sitting in. Maintenance is 5-6 figures.

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techw1z@reddit

subscription is the reason why cracks become even more important and interesting now. fuck adobe, crack that shit!

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No-Combination2020@reddit

All activation is broken, it's just a matter of time and desire.

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coalnine@reddit

One client I had was running a cracked version of adobe creative suite. Previous it guy even had firewall rules in place named "fuck adobe" and "fuck adobe update too". I flat out told them I'm not installing that shit on anything moving forward. First took them over and there was a perpetual virus on the server that took some doing to get rid of. Something related to AutoCAD. I dropped them quick, ticking time bomb there and no regard for security software or network monitoring. Fuckin people just begging to have all their shit ransomed and I just didn't feel like waiting for the shit to hit the fan.

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czj420@reddit

Everything was cracked when I started, it's all been ripped out and replaced.

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DarkKooky@reddit

Does having VMs with non-activated 2008 Windows count?

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Normal-Difference230@reddit

took over control from internal IT for an architecture company. They had 20+ employes all doubled up on adobe licenses. Sure they were paying $70 per user per month for the full blown suite, but 2 activations is not for 2 different users. Then I saw that all the host files were blocking adobe licensing servers. Then I found the cracks on the file server for Google Sketchup. And when I brought it to my owners attention (MSP) I was told not to rock the boat. It took 2 years to break them of that habit, I hated everytime I got a ticket about someone getting booted from Adobe.

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VirtualPlate8451@reddit

AutoDesk will go hard with no lube in an audit. You’ll be dropping $25K+ on annual subscriptions to keep from getting sued.

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Rawme9@reddit

I cry at our 3-year renewal costs from AutoDesk. Well into 6 figures.

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TheTechJones@reddit

all engineering software is expensive. mostly its because it is expected that it is being used in a way that generates a ton of revenue and the software company wants their slice of the pie the same as anyone else. The last time i checked, even very basic AutoCAD licenses were about 1k/yr USD. so 100k only buys you 3 years for 30 or 40 users (add a buffer for 5 or 10 managers who have not used it in a decade but are convinced they still NEED it anyway, then its closer to 25-30 users). Things like SolidWorks start at about 4 times that cost and go up quickly from there. Want to add modules to do specific things? the cost is going to grow at what seems like an exponential rate (because they fully expect your fees to perform the services supported by those modules to rise along the same general curve) Heck, i worked at an org that used SolidEdge or EdgeCAM (for machining rather than designing) and they wanted to charge me 10k to replace a db25 dongle with USB when i couldn't find an engineering class laptop that actually still had db25 ports even in the dock. (i managed to wire a harness that converted it and to this day i am still amazed it worked and can only attribute that to "too ignorant to know it was impossible" and the blind luck of fools). looking back though i would wager a dozen donuts that the reason they were demanding that price was because we had not been current on M&S for years, just because that was one of the many corners cut in the name of cost savings

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PowerShellGenius@reddit

I would sure hope with a company that isn't a monopoly (you have some viable alternative) that the year they go after you with lawyers is the last year you do business with them! "Sure, I'll get that for 1 year if we can call this settled. No I won't be renewing" \*posts publicly on review sites and BBB about how strict and eager to go after their own *paying* customers for a mistake they are\* And if forced to stay with them because a million third party apps are tied to their platform (if they are one of the big psuedo-monopoly enterprise platforms like Microsoft) - I would hope having Legal want to ban doing business with that company again & being outright unable to would help corporations realize what Microsoft is & since corporations donate a lot to politicians & have their ears, maybe get someone to actually look at antitrust? It blows my mind that a paying customer can make a small-scale mistake on some complex licensing scheme - NOT hacking or doing anything plainly obviously intentionally malicious like cracked software, just having some low level employee decide to share their login - and have a vendor threaten to sue them, and have no choice but continue doing business with said shitbag vendor. Some of these companies just need to be broken into a few dozen pieces by regulators. Once "no longer doing business with you" is an option that doesn't really disrupt my business, the game changes and customer service, understandable licensing, and other things customers want will matter.

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malikto44@reddit

I remember on USENET, someone posting from their work address onto a CAD newsgroup: Guy@some-no-name-company.com "My job pirates AutoCAD, should I turn them in?" Someone@AutoDesk: "You just did." This was back in the 1990s. Dassault and AutoDesk don't play around.

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Ssakaa@reddit

> for Google Sketchup Ok. That I missed when I first read this, and it just gave me a heck of a chuckle. Of all the products... *that* is what they went with? If price is magically not an option, how does someone pick Sketchup over Revit?

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mrgatorarms@reddit

I still keep a copy of Sketchup 8 around which was the last version free for both personal and commercial use. Fantastic software with a really shallow learning curve.

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Ssakaa@reddit

Yeah, it's an alright tool... but for proper architecture work, when they weren't paying for licenses...

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TexasVulvaAficionado@reddit

Back when SketchUp was still under Google, Revit was a PITA. And, if you are mostly spitting out quick models and doing full renders in a 3rd party tool (I remember FormZ being a big thing back then), I'd prefer SketchUp. That said, I have not enjoyed SketchUp at all since Google sold and Revit has gotten much better (and more expensive).

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OcotilloWells@reddit

I have a client that uses both, though they pay for both.

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Rubcionnnnn@reddit

I support anyone who steals adobe software. Fuck adobe and their shitty business practices.

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Minteck@reddit

For personal use, why not. But for businesses, it can really get you in trouble if you do.

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AcidOverlord@reddit

I used to work for a place who needed Photoshop juuuust regularly enough to have to have it around, but not nearly enough to justify the ridiculous license fees involved. There was a server running a Windows XP VM with a cracked copy of Photoshop 6 that was available to everyone in 2 departments just for such occasions. I hope they're still using it, because fuck Adobe.

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MuchFox2383@reddit

They make it a pain in the balls even if you WANT to pay for their product. We have VIPs that get screwed with the 2 licensed machines policy since they have like 10.

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pdp10@reddit

Just like narcissistic celebrities, the proper treatment is to ignore them totally and not give them the validation they want.

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Valkeyere@reddit

Idgaf about what management says when it comes to that. I do not support companies in their efforts to skirt licensing agreements. Luckily my manager backs me on this, because that is a hill I will die on. And would then sue for wrongful dismissal, because I would win that one six ways till Sunday.

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Ssakaa@reddit

> And would then sue for wrongful dismissal, because I would win that one six ways till Sunday. Ask Adobe for help with the lawsuit in return for documentation going into it. They might loan out a lawyer or three.

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TEverettReynolds@reddit

Back in the early to mid 2000s, using a real key was rare when you could go here and get any key for almost any system: https://web.archive.org/web/20050203033411/http://serialz.to/

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say592@reddit

Small MSP I worked for sold computers with cracked software (Windows XP and Office) to price sensitive clients. We also dealt with legitimate copies too though.

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labmansteve@reddit

I did. They eventually got raided by the feds for financial crimes.

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PowerShellGenius@reddit

The feds don't like people challenging their monopoly on financial crime, lol

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labmansteve@reddit

[Money Printer Go Brrr](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O1hCLBTD5RM)

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Ok_Exchange_9646@reddit (OP)

lmaoo

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flatland_skier@reddit

Ours was Novel.. back when that was a thing. 1000's of clients.. 3-4 licenses.

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CleverCarrot999@reddit

Novell. Ah, that takes me back

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GreyBeardIT@reddit

Same. I started with 3.1 I think and moved on shortly after 5.0, when they decided to ignore their core business of reliably serving files, come hell or high water and start bolting on garbage to compete with Windows Server.

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MARS822a@reddit

Migrating from Novell to AD was a hell of a lot easier than migrating from NT 4.0 to AD. You don't want to know how I know that.

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myke113@reddit

They got so mad at me at a job that used Novell for writing a program that looked just like the red Novell login screen... but wrote what they typed into a file before logging them in... Does that mean I was phishing before phishing was phishing..? It was never actually deployed though, only done as a proof of concept.

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jasutherland@reddit

We had some NetWare installs where something had malfunctioned and applied the same 1000 user license multiple times. Today I was using a Windows Server instance which hasn't been activated properly - there's a license for it somewhere, just not the Windows activation stuff. (Recent upgrade from 2012 R2 to 2016, and we do have Software Assurance, just a severe lack of admin time to update things...)

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labmansteve@reddit

Microsoft, and a variety of others. This was over a decade ago though.

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sozmateimlate@reddit

What country was that? That sounds like science fiction for people in third world countries like me lol

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labmansteve@reddit

The USA, specifically New York.

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samcrocr@reddit

Wow that's nuts.

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ninjababe23@reddit

Smart

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Ok_Exchange_9646@reddit (OP)

Right

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No_Bit_1456@reddit

Sounds like the BSA made a good penny off them

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labmansteve@reddit

Ironically enough, I don't know that it was the piracy that got them in trouble. Apparently, software piracy wasn't their only questionable practice. LOL

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No_Bit_1456@reddit

LOL usually that goes hand in hand.

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_BoNgRiPPeR_420@reddit

A large hospital in Canada got busted for this, had to pay a huge amount to Microsoft.

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Capable-Reaction8155@reddit

Damn, if you're that poor just use Linux and FLOSS. You can support some random devs that would be happy to quit their job to update some of their passion FLOSS projects.

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_BoNgRiPPeR_420@reddit

It's not that simple. If I remember correctly the product was SQL Server. You can't just simply switch an enterprise program over to MySQL or Postgres. The lack of payment was due to incorrect licensing counts, hospitals have lots of money and are funded by the government here.

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Capable-Reaction8155@reddit

Indeed, it’s never that simple. Hospitals need working software, migration is hard/costly/dangerous, and everything is very much tied together and institutionalized. It would be nice to slowly weave out of this and use more FLOSS, but I 100% hear you.

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Naznarreb@reddit

Given the socialized nature of healthcare in Canada I wouldn't be surprised if there were regulatory requirements on What software is used

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Capable-Reaction8155@reddit

I’m not pro or anti regulation. Depending on what it says this could be very stupid or very smart

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JustinRahl@reddit

Worked for a company where the owner bought a cracked bootleg of Solidworks in China and brought it back and had the lead engineer figure out to use it. No Ransomware or Virus (many years ago where it was less common) but absolutely had the software police lawyers pay us a visit after a disgruntled employee reported it. All of this was behind IT's back. we found out when the Audit came.

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zandadoum@reddit

I had a small customer that managed cafes and restaurants. They would design the menus, etc. Already had trouble as their HQ had a big Director turnover. Every 6 month a new director with new stupid ideas. They had a couple WiFi printers that I had to reconfigure 6 times in 1 year because new director hired new internet provider to save 3 bucks and with the new router, the printers stopped connecting to WiFi Anyways, after several years, one of the CEO daughters took over and her brilliant saving plan was to fire the 3rd party design team. Called me next day “I need you to install the whole adobe suite” and I was like “sure, no problem, that will cost 5000€ (or whatever it was. A lot. this was around 15y ago before adobe had online subscription) Insert customer confusion and swearing and then she tells me to “just install a pirated version”. I told her I don’t have a pirated version. Week later she calls again. A friend had copied her a pirated version and she needed me to install it. I refused and told her whatever PC she ends up installing it will no longer be covered by her contract. She pulled off other shit after that and I basically told her to fuck off. Called her dad (retired) who was the one who hired me in the first place and told him that I’m sorry, but I was done with his brat of a kid and we’d no longer be working together.

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captkrahs@reddit

Can confirm nor deny

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GreyBeardIT@reddit

It happens. It's not uncommon, in my experience. It's usually the smaller companies that do this. When I worked with them, I simply stating I would not crack anything. If they cracked software, that's not my problem, but I'm not getting involved with it. Some cared and got licenses, some didn't. KMS activation hack is quite popular and will trigger for most AV, so you get to exclude that. I just make them aware, in an email, that I have to exclude this and it's a hole in their sec. The onus is on them.

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wwbubba0069@reddit

No, but seen some things to get around licensing. Like scripts to run at shift changes to release all licenses so they could be picked up by the next shift. That was years ago, the software company caught on and fixed that loophole.

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loupgarou21@reddit

Yeah. The most recent I can think of was the driver for a machine that makes printing plates. The driver uses a hardware dongle for licensing, and that hardware dongle connected to the computer via parallel port. Well, parallel ports haven't been common on computers for quite a while, but the company still had the printing plate machine that worked fine. USB to parallel adapters didn't work properly for that specific hardware dongle, so...

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easier2say@reddit

Yes, I worked in an organization that used a pirated version of Adobe. It didn't get infected but their computers were running terribly slow.

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PM_YOUR_OWLS@reddit

I had an internship with a social media management company that shared a Dropbox with cracked versions of Photoshop and a couple other things. I was only there for 4 months so I didn't really care.

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klassicxero@reddit

Is is some FBI post for sure.

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Used-Personality1598@reddit

A little over 25 years ago our legal team had recently hired a second employee. They had a tool which had worked great for years, but was now generating intermittent errors and kicking the users from the program. I called the manufacturer who asked me to check the value of a registry key named "MaxAllowedUsersOnNetwork": It was to "1". Turns out we only had one license, and if both users ran the program, the system would randomly pick one and kick them out. The manufacturer offered to fax us instructions on how to purchase a second license, but I declined and just changed the value to "2" on both machines. That of course fixed the problem. I never told anyone. So yes, I totally cracked that software. But none of our computers had Internet connectivity back then so ransomware or viruses wasn't really a concern.

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techw1z@reddit

at this point, the morally correct thing to do is crack all microsoft and adobe stuff and probably others I can't think of now. many companies do that and I usually support that unless there are doubts about security. many companies might even have legal licenses but using an illegal version is easier. that's especially true for all software that requires hardware dongles. i will sniff them and emulate that shit as fast as I can, or use a crack if available...

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aceospos@reddit

Non-US junior here. Lol, we would get asked to get the "free version". Microsoft Windows, Microsoft Office. Even installed the cracked version of some print management software (PrintNG or something)

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anxiousinfotech@reddit

I haven't worked for companies that directly cracked software. I'm not saying some licensing terms were never violated (e.g. we bought 20 copies and ended up with 25 in use due to poor tracking), but we at least bought the underlying software and mostly honored the terms of the license agreements. The companies we've bought/merged with though? It's a nightmare. The majority of the violations were Microsoft software. Stuff like using MS Partner licenses for revenue generating activity, having 30 2016 Datacenter installs when they bought a single license for Server 2000 20 years ago, Enterprise installed on white box PCs with no underlying OEM license, etc. I do know one of them got ransomwared at one point, but I believe that was a combination of GoToMyPC with stupid simple creds and a flat network, not vulnerable software. Another also had a much more limited ransomware incident, but that was due to lack of patching. Another did have Adobe's legal dept reach out about cracked software, but I don't know what ended up happening there.

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Doso777@reddit

I once did an internship with a company that also hosted events on trade shows and such.

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zipline3496@reddit

I work for one of, if not the, largest insurance brokers in the US and they have almost no control or idea over what software is installed. For decades the helpdesk installed anything someone asked for and other teams deployed whatever software they wanted. We have entire teams using freeware based out of Russia as “business critical” or other extremely old vulnerable software. Not sure I’ve found a cracked title yet, but I would absolutely not be surprised if our dev teams who all have local admin aren’t using some cracked tools. It’s 2024 and they’re just now trying to put software policy in place and enforce it, but it’s been an enormous shit show to say the least.

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MeatSuzuki@reddit

I worked for a retail franchise who's owner was an absolute tight arse. The CRM software the company used was pirated, I found out only becuause I was studying IT while working for them and I just was poking around. I hated the owner with a passion as he would constantly take away our commissions as punishment (like if he noticed dust in the shop, a computer screen was unlocked, staff cars parked incorrectly etc). Needless to say I took as many details as possible from the workstations and shared them with the software owner. A week later he received a letter of demand stating he needed to pay the licencing fee or risk legal action. This guy had 5 or 6 shops with numerous workstations in each, from what I calculated the licence was $40k ish annually. I and a few other staff left about 3 weeks later as he took all our commissions away to subsidise the fees.

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smoike@reddit

The docking of commission reminds me of Rowan in [http://www.youtube.com/@VivaLaDirtLeague](Viva la Dirt League).

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MeatSuzuki@reddit

Pay cut....

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smoike@reddit

He's going to be waiting for Alan for a looong time.

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MeatSuzuki@reddit

He'll be back..... Just you wait.

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smoike@reddit

I wouldn't be surprised. But I'm just going along with it.

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Ok_Exchange_9646@reddit (OP)

unholy levels of based. Good

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Lucky_Foam@reddit

I worked at a non profit in 2005. They had no budget for anything. Their whole IT department was donations. I worked for a company that has a contract with the non profit. $25/hours for any and all IT work. I made minimum wage; so the profit the company I worked for was very little. One of the "donations" was a Windows XP key. No one told me where it came from and I didn't ask. But everything used that one key for all their computers. Even their "server" was running Windows XP with that Key. I spent a lot of time going through old computers and salvaging parts that were good and could be used. The rest was recycled. I didn't last long there. $25/hour was way too much for them. And eventually they had to cancel the contract. The guy in charge got his nephew that was in high school to take over as an unpaid "intern".

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joey0live@reddit

Sony used pirated Adobe software before.

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ScroogeMcDuckFace2@reddit

nice try, officer

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Bio_Hazardous@reddit

When I started at my current place our office licenses appeared to all be cracked 2019 keys., everyone was just assigned an exchange online license for outlook and then using these office apps (complete with sketchy email address to log in with, great). Took a few months to get the approval to fix that, been battling software licensing costs and approvals ever since.

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DipShit290@reddit

Still do. Everything that has a crack. No, never.

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Smiles_OBrien@reddit

I remember a law firm I used to support was DEFINITELY using cracked Adobe Acrobat Pro. It was not a small firm either. I think by the time I left that MSP, they were trying to go legit, so that's good. To be knowledge they never got in trouble or infected for it.

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No_Bit_1456@reddit

Yep.. I did, and it was always places that treated their employees like crap. Saw IT as a waste of money? Yet relied on them to make the org function better

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tejanaqkilica@reddit

Yes. Who remembers anymore, all kinds of software were cracked. From the usual culprits like Office and the entire Adobe catalog. To more niche stuff that were for a specific use within the company. Nope, during my entire time there we didn't have an incident like that. Once you establish a certain level of control, segment your network properly and establish what can and cannot be done and obtain your software from a reputable source, you greatly limit the surface of attack.

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AverageMuggle99@reddit

Yes but they didn’t know I was using it hehehe

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Spagman_Aus@reddit

Yep, a web design company that used cracked versions of Macromedia Studio. They were dodgy AF and a disgruntled ex employee reported them. One day I turned up and a meeting room was filled with dozens of software boxes. Perhaps they got tipped off, they never got properly busted for it.

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SignificanceIcy2466@reddit

The copy of Visio they got me uses a licenses key from eBay. Does this count?

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theborgman1977@reddit

New clients some time have cracked software.. I take pride in getting that out of the customers systems. Their are 3 levels of audit you have to watch for in the USA. MS - Microsoft 1. MS SAM audit = It is voluntary they usually give you a price and what to buy to correct it. Done thru MS by a third party. If you ignore it it doubles you chance for the next audit. To be honest it goes from 1% chance to a 2% chance. 2. MS verification audit - Not optional done by MS. Unless you are really cheating MS just tells you what you have to buy. What I have seen is the biggest cost is OEM MS software put on hardware and not resold, If you refuse to do it. They can deactivate your software, prevent your company from getting getting an O365 tenant, and prevent future activations. They can also report you to the SBSA for the next level of audit. 3. The big one. Small Business Software Association Audit- They will fine you if the find something. All MS and 3rd party software is up for the audit. You are only on angry employee or x-employee away from this kind of audit. You say you never agreed to this. Well MS has you there. You can agree to the terms by ether clicking ok/yes, or by simply using the software. Agree to a contract by actions is a thing in the US.

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feedmescanlines@reddit

Oh yeah plenty of times. Nothing ever happened. It was many many years ago though...

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technos@reddit

Everything, from the Windows XP install to the individual desktop applications. The entire Adobe suite, Office, etc. Worst part? The company had all the licenses they actually needed just sitting in a drawer. The admin was just lazy and, instead of installing just what users required, threw the same image with literally everything installed via crack on virtually all the machines.

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AppIdentityGuy@reddit

Loads of companies are short on their EntraID licensing

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slow_down_kid@reddit

I would bet there are more companies out their with a single Entra license to enable Conditional Access than there are companies with a P1+ for every user

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MrYiff@reddit

Or those that don't realise using Entra ID dynamic groups also requires every group member to be P1+ licensed (unlike dynamic device groups which are free, MS really don't make this easy).

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AppIdentityGuy@reddit

Yep. It works but you are out of compliance. What worries me is the potential for MS to start disablimg functionality based on licence status. Can you imagine the firestorm that will happen if they do that? Even if they announce it a year advance a bunch of people will claim ignorance and then scream when the functionality is removed.

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MrYiff@reddit

Yeah, or since they can track when it was enabled and how many users were using the feature, they just start sending out invoices saying you now owe MS and you need to pay up for all the features you were using or we lock your entire tenant.

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cidknee1@reddit

I have yet to see a company with more than 4 P1s. We use the p2 for conditional access but anything above that is out of my hands. I’m not in licensing.

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techierealtor@reddit

I have one with several thousand in their pool. They are smart enough to not screw around at their size thankfully.

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iama_bad_person@reddit

We got a single p2 for a couple months for testing purposes, our MS rep said as long as we got p2's for everyone by the next contract signing it was fine with him. We now have just over 2k E5 licences which covers everything.

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cidknee1@reddit

We almost always sell E5s. Just makes life easier.

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thefpspower@reddit

It's such bullshit that conditional access requires a more expensive licence, with on-prem Exchange if I wanted to block every country exept my own from login I just add a rule to the firewall, with Microsoft? Fuck your basic security, pay us.

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iama_bad_person@reddit

We got a single p2 for a couple months for testing purposes, our MS rep said as long as we got p2's for everyone by the next contract signing it was fine with him.

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DoctorOctagonapus@reddit

Probably not on purpose given how much of a mess MS licensing is.

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Raxor@reddit

Dont forget the 'Azure Hybrid Benefit' button which is just a 'i promise im good button' so you dont pay the licensing consumption on VMs

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derango@reddit

I worked at a car dealership that had a Microsoft Office 2010 installer with a crack burned to a CD-R that I found in my desk when I showed up. Note, I wasn't the one who used it. I GTFO-ed out of that job after 1-2 months, so I have no idea what happened with them.

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firedrakes@reddit

ha same here. also local dealer ship was spread out on land 3 different building. had a very strange wifi set up(never paid for the ap set ups). simple device look up and default password. was their config. the real kicker was all this was all connected to their billing,sales,part network. i did work for them for a month or so. but they really did not want to listen or do the basic of security. years later when i went back their network was secure. me thinks they got hack hard and cost them a pretty penny.

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rootbear75@reddit

One of my last jobs bought buckets of grey market oem.windows keys so often. I kept warning them someone would catch on. Though this is also the company that has no internal network. (Yes. I said what I said)

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nocommentacct@reddit

did they catch on?

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rootbear75@reddit

No idea. I imagine not since I don't think anyone has reported them and they're small enough that Microsoft wouldn't really care. They have gotten ransomware at least 4 times that I am aware of, since I left.

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kreemerz@reddit

Also, name the org. 🙄

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traumalt@reddit

That’s about half the companies here in Eastern Europe, and if it’s possible to be pirated then it will be. It’s entirely cultural, MS can try to get a local lawyer for a lawsuit, but I’m willing to bet that the lawyer is using pirated office ironically…

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itsthehawke@reddit

I guess most of you speak from experience working in the US. At least hear in Europe, I have not heard about anybody getting in trouble for pirated software. Small businesses do this all the time - Adobe, CADs, Office and Windows. I know its not ideal, and if it was for me, I would get the company to buy licences, but I feel like a lot of you demonize cracked software like it was the devil. We all run/ran some cracked software on our machines.

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Advanced_Vehicle_636@reddit

We *had* a client that used Cisco ASA firmware downloaded from "unofficial" sources. Our network team got a request for the SHA of the "official" firmware. They were sent a link to the download which listed the expected hash results. Of course, to get to this download site, you need an active support contract, which they obviously didn't have. After a bit of back-and-forth they admitted to downloading firmware from unofficial sources. They were already behind on payments \[to us\], now sourcing firmware from other sources - presumably to avoid paying license fees. They got dropped. Not worth pissing off Cisco, and we figured if they were at the point of using unofficial firmware for FIREWALLS, you were probably on the verge of going into administration (bankruptcy/insolvency).

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Ferretau@reddit

No but a company I worked for purchased another company where they were using unlicensed software. The Management of the company was forced to sack the IT Manager by my management and the cost of purchasing the required licensed software was taken out of the amount the owners were paid for the company. It was a substantial in the six figures and this was for a small company less then 200 staff.

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Pure_Cartographer_98@reddit

Adobe.

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myke113@reddit

Nice try, SPA... I ain't no snitch!

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myke113@reddit

Ok, ok.. I once pirated Linux at work... We didn't even pay for it once!

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Kreppelklaus@reddit

At my first gig, one day the boss came around, handed me a burned CD with a piece of paper inside, telling me it's time to update Office to a more recent version. I been there 1 month but already knew about "CYA". So i wrote a short signed letter where i informed about the dangers of using cracked software, some infos about busted companies and a clear statement that i don't support using cracked software and refuse to install it without a writen and signed order from my boss. 1 week later our company bought their first volume licence package. P.S.: company got infected by locky 6 month later because boss let his mom do some HR stuff to save costs.... needless to say i did not stay there for long.

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Racctical@reddit

Yep, a physical therapy company with two locations. You name it, they did it. Windows licenses, office software licenses, antivirus, even their scheduling software was violating their usage agreements. I quickly left that place after the owner wouldn’t remediate.

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Colink98@reddit

Only been asked to do this once And my reply was to ask what my cut was for being the main player in this heist It was never discussed again

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VarmintLP@reddit

Yup. And I leave it at that.

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Pr3vYCa@reddit

In developing countries like the one i work in, everything is cracked even the government.

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KanadaKid19@reddit

No, but I am still struggling to stamp out some bad habits with users account-sharing random personally licensed SaaS products.

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CheekyChonkyChongus@reddit

Oh yeah, of course

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UninvestedCuriosity@reddit

Yes but they didn't know their previous sysadmin was doing so. I made them get right within the first year or two, lots of conversations about what they could actually afford and lots of Linux later and we are legit right down to the last machine cals. I think the most obnoxious part about the whole thing were the systems that had become mission critical that I then had to get covered before I could find the time and expertise to get them rewritten and it took me a while to get all the ducks in a row but I found that PHP/UX dev. Things aren't perfect yet but it's legitimate at least. God so many things were wrong I didn't even consider that like a win or something to be proud of.

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lesusisjord@reddit

Yup. A non-profit I worked at used a cracked version of Acronis True Image that was a couple years old. Such a cheap piece of software - why not just buy the current version‽

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Rattlehead71@reddit

FCKGW-RHQQ2-YXRKT-8TG6W-287Q8

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Smartyan2002@reddit

Bring back a lot of memories... thank you

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sushifencer@reddit

…. Had to double check that I wasn’t in r/ShittySysadmin

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lvlint67@reddit

cracked? no... my friend used to work at a place that would probably fail an oracle jdk audit... And for about a decade no one had enough cals anywhere in their windows environments.

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usr654321@reddit

Not cracked, but overuse and abuse of licenses, yes.

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rob-entre@reddit

In a previous career path, I used AutoCAD quite a bit. My supervisor PAID for a cracked copy of AutoCAD. He truly thought it was a legitimate copy. This was a long time before ransomware. But no, there were no viruses, no keygen, etc.

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zangrabar@reddit

I work for a VAR and I was a VMware licensing specialist at the time. I had a customer who was being audited by VMware. I don’t remember the counts exactly, just rough dollar amounts. They were using vsphere cloud foundation on every server which was a 20k per socket license. And I believe they only owned like a dozen or so copies. But it was deployed on like 80 or so servers I think. All dual socket. And expired by this point. VMware was going to charge them like 5-10 million for back dated fees and what not. and I got them to bring it down to 300k to license everything with just ent plus on every server and a couple copies of vCenter. The amount of shock on my face throughout that entire process has never been replicated. This was like 6 years ago.

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FormalBend1517@reddit

Yes. And yes. Siemens NX, from some Russian torrent tracker. First it was some crypto miner, then few months later full blown ransomware. And it was really nasty, encrypted VMs and didn’t bother with individual files, and if that wasn’t enough, all workstation got encrypted too. And after cleaning all that mess, not even a year later I was asked by the owner to crack NX again. In front of lots of employees I asked him if he was fucking high. And added a warning that next time I was going to hack him just to teach him a lesson if one wasn’t enough. No, I didn’t get fired, I got huge indirect raise (certain benefit worth well into 5 figures), and lots of beer anytime I stopped at his place.

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SadnessAndOreos@reddit

I used to for a Chinese owned company that was using cracked Factory Automation software made by a fairly major company. I watched the vendor setting up the software, saw it was cracked, reported it to my boss, who reported it all the way up to the CEO who said not to worry about it. Company was breaking a ton of laws, but I left and never looked back. Not my problem anymore.

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modrup@reddit

Are you a cop? You've got to tell me if I ask you directly.

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Ok_Exchange_9646@reddit (OP)

No? Just wondering how many dumbass business owners there are

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Valkeyere@reddit

The answer to that is 'lots'. Possibly even approaching 'most of them'.

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uptimefordays@reddit

Idk, I’ve never seen cracked software in a real environment. I’ve seen lots of other stupid things, but not that.

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Valkeyere@reddit

I've seen mostly Photoshop. A few times I've seen people attempting to get cracked CAD software too. I nope out entirely, and then reach out to the owner advising something to the effect of "As this is against licensing terms I'm obligated to inform the vendor' and this tends to kibosh it.

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Mister_Brevity@reddit

Nobody would probably admit it here because it would destroy any semblance of plausible deniability.

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ninjababe23@reddit

Most business owners are dumbasses

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Ok_Exchange_9646@reddit (OP)

true

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DaCozPuddingPop@reddit

And you can't arrest me for anything you saw before you told me you were a cop!

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lanavishnu@reddit

I had a close call. Client wanted to use a contractor for some work, so I asked to get a remote session to check the system, install EDR software, ensure they were up to spec, etc before I'd let them on the VPN. Discovered cracked copies of Office on them and that ended any thought of giving them VPN access. I pointed out the high risk of malware and ransomware and made sure the company principals wouldn't cave.

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CmdrDTauro@reddit

Years ago. Toad for Oracle. Multi-million $ international company. Just pay the damn license!

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ItsAZooKeeper@reddit

Heard a tech at Microsoft had to use one of those activation scripts to force a computer to activate 🤣

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hacnstein@reddit

There have been a few stories about game publishers using cracked version of their games when they re-released them, in an effort to remove DRM.

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hunterkll@reddit

Unfortunately, bottom barrel third party contractors will cut corners like this kind of shit. It's annoying..... but it wasn't a microsoft employee directly. Just an outsourced helpdesk junkie from the lowest bidder.

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No-Combination2020@reddit

That's just as bad as Nintendo using roms and emulators from the Internet in their official products. Piracy is all evil until they need to capitalize on it.

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Drew707@reddit

Cracked, no, but I did inherit a BSA audit my first week of running IT for my old company for an over-extension of Office 2010 volume licensing. Turned into a $100k fine, quarterly physical audits for a year, and a mandatory migration to 365. It was a pretty wild story involving deceit, betrayal, and a deathbed confession if anyone cares to hear.

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nocommentacct@reddit

i'd love to hear! my first company ran 20 copies of office 2010 that the keys were purchased from online sites for $10 each and used on a couple of machines each until they wouldn't activate. How did MS contact them and did they have to physically check the machines to verify they were illegal?

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mrcluelessness@reddit

Does running a pirated media server where anyone can torrent directly to it and access count? Interesting watching company politics over its existence. I made sure I could not be associated with it's usage or management.

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free2game@reddit

Not sure if this counts, but my org got a perpetual unlimited license for a backup software (won't say which but it has vault in the name) as a fuck you because of push people from management always bothering sales people at the org and claiming we were there biggest customer, etc. We got an unlimited license for the version we used, which was a little old at the time and came with caveat of no support. Fast forward, tons of our dedicated servers we have left over are still using that as a backup and it's held together with duck tape and glue. Despite a new regime taking over my company/division, the company who supplied the software won't answer our emails/calls.

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technobrendo@reddit

Yes, a law firm that a MSP I worked for as a client had veeam with a product key from a warez release group

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jasonheartsreddit@reddit

A few years back I showed a friend at his brokeass company how to cracktivate Windows 7 with daz and upgrade it to Windows 10 to get the digital license. He does it on every used $50 XP-era Optiplex they buy. I'm so proud.

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nocommentacct@reddit

there was an upgrade crack where you just set the machine to blind or deaf mode and then upgraded normally and once it hit windows 10 the machine showed itself as licensed.

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solracarevir@reddit

Not me but someone I know. They were running multiple cracked copies of a pretty expensive CAD software. Apparently they did a firewall upgrade and forgot to block the software from calling home on the new firewall. Software started calling Home, multiple installations from the same IP address. Software company called the ISP and asked for the personal info of the IP holder and the rest is history. They had to purchase licenses of the software for all their PC's who had the software installed and all the features installed, since it was a cracked version it add all their addons and was installed on almost every computer, even on computers of those who didnt used it at all just because. On top of that they were forced to pay a Hefty fine to avoid legal action against them.

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nocommentacct@reddit

wow that's wild! always wondered how that was handled. I don't really understand what would happen if they contacted the offending company and the offending company just denied everything. Would they have to search warrant their machines or do they already have enough evidence? What if the company deleted the software or locked it down again from broadcasting? Seems easy to get around if you don't rat yourself out when questioned.

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nocommentacct@reddit

Yep. My first job was working for a dataprocessing company that 100% relied on MS SQL server to make it's money. They skirted over a million dollars in licensing fees by doing this. I brought it up and the president laughed and said "that's not how the licensing works". He knew it was though. I talked to the CEO and he asked me if I thought they really had to pay. I said probably not but I don't know. I spun up more SQL servers after this as well running on 64 core servers and they never paid a penny. They're still in operation and doing the same thing. They have about 25 employees. Small enough and smart enough to hide their environment if it comes down to it. I don't personally care as long as I'm not the one getting in trouble for it. Same with all the Windows server licensing. We used to buy MS Office licenses off 3rd party retailer sites for $10 a key and never had any issues either. They bought the MS Server 2012R2 datacenter edition licenses from a guy off craigslist for $50 each too. No issues. Anyone have an opposite experience where the company got caught?

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russr@reddit

I did, and believe it or not it was at a law firm. I can't remember what all the software was because it was so many years ago, but I'm pretty sure I called the turn in anonymous number on them as payback. Some of the lawyers were complete douchebags I remember a woman lawyer screaming at her secretary in the office and berating her to the point where everyone in the entire building could hear it. I believe this was the same person who would call the help desk for help on something and then start screaming and bitching at them if her stuff wasn't fixed within about 10 seconds of the phone call. It got to the point where our boss said if she calls just to transfer her directly to him. I remember one of the women lawyers had a ton of pictures of her at the Playboy Mansion on her computer and her in the grotto and with a bunch of the models at some event she went to.

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mr-phillips@reddit

Yup where I am now cracked office 2019 was on every computer. the place was an absolute mess my Manager got approval to declare extermanitus on all cracked software, and they had deeper issues as well from no vlan segmentation to exposed services with no firewall protection and botnets running around, A ransomware even got but we had started to install EDR on all the servers that able to stop it. we since put in a NGFW got EDR and all endpoints removed all cracked software.

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SpeculationMaster@reddit

I used to work at Sams Club and they would open up new movies and play the Blu-rays to display on their TVs. As far as i know, that's not compliant with movie licensing.

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schuya@reddit

I didn’t work for them, but when I bought o365 life time account for curiosity(I was curious how it works), I found a lot of business documents uploaded by a single account on the SPO. I called them and they said that they replaced a computer and its office by their MSP. She didn’t understand what I was saying so she asked me to receive a call from the MSP. I accepted her offer and I talked with the MSP, but they were like “I reinstalled Office, so the issue was solved, right? Is there anything to do next?” WTF They just shouldn’t provide IT services to anyone.

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CharcoalGreyWolf@reddit

Surest way to get reported by a (probably justifiably) disgruntled employee. Call the BSA anonymously and let them sort it out. Or maybe even not anonymously if they let you keep a percentage of the fine money.

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LetsAutomateIt@reddit

My dad used to be a solo admin for a small refurb aerospace company that did that. He slowly got them up to speed with legal software but the owners were penny pinchers unless it came to their own spending like custom Mercedes from Germany. Anywho they got hit with some kind of worm or virus and remember my dad spending all weekend rebuilding one of the servers. They had a print server running Win 3.11 around 2010 🤦‍♂️

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Afraid-Ad8986@reddit

Our latest software for our mechanics calls home daily or it stops working. I told them today to sell me the dam laptop they sell so we can put it on a cart and leave it on 24/7. We need their software but will go months without using it. I can guarantee this is one of the most cracked software!

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BloodFeastMan@reddit

We loaded the same copy of Windows 98 on every computer. That kind of counts.

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Phuopham@reddit

Adobe products :))

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conlmaggot@reddit

I had a customer who had 'microsoft' reach out for a license audit. It was a 3rd party who go fishing, then hand off leads to the actual Microsoft licensing people. My customer at the time, includes the 7 copies of Office for Mac that were like, 5 years old. And had keys from The Pirate Bay. In the end, they had to back pay a few grand in licensing, to avoid legal issues. All they had to do was say ' no thank you' and quickly sure themselves up.

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DDRDiesel@reddit

Company? Try county government. They were using cracked installs of Dameware NT utilities (remote software) for help desk This is the same country government that fired half their department directors then used the savings from the now-terminated salaries to buy brand-new iPad for the remaining directors (turned out to be strictly political and the county supervisor was found guilty of corruption not long after)

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CAStrash@reddit

I had a client that did, I urged them not too but their in house IT guy had lots of pirated software. At some point something called home and they got some sort of fine.

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punkwalrus@reddit

I did. Hong Kong office had no legal copy of anything. Cracked Windows, Office, Exchange, you name it. No idea if they cracked it or not, but I assume they just got it from somewhere else. This was around 1999-2001, so a lot was going on in Hong Kong at the time. Theft was so bad: we'd send a server there, and it would arrive missing half its parts. They'd send it back, and it was just a shell and motherboard. Usually stuff got "lost" in customs. The server room had about half an inch of standing water. We eventually closed that office because it was apparent that doing business there was a loss. Otherwise, there has been a lot of "sharing" of keys at various places I have worked. Like a KB article: Q: My copy of \[whatever\] is reporting an expired license. A: Click your Start button, open a command box, and type "Regedit"...

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TylerTechNZ@reddit

10 years ago, I worked for a Web Design company that used cracked versions of Photoshop CS6 (among other Adobe apps), because they were too stingy to pony up for Creative Cloud licenses.

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Mr_Squinty@reddit

A hell of a long time ago I worked at a web design company. Not one legal license in that entire place. I mentioned it and basically got sacked not long after.

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Back_Two_The_Future@reddit

Yeah, previous employer (SaaS market) was notorious for this. Massive footprint (over 300+ VMs) running unlicensed Windows Server and VMware. I left fairly quickly. This wasn't their only issue of course. Never have I seen such disregard for staff and clients, the arrogance.

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bigfoot_76@reddit

Yes, a few MSP jobs ago they used it. They also tried to force me to use a keygen on vSphere hosts on a customer that was a housing authority for a large city encompassing dozens of properties. They fired me about a month later because I told one of the partners that I wasn't fucking doing it. I reported it to BSA hoping for maybe a $3 payout, never heard a word from them. I guess screenshots of the email with the RAR file, Cisco Jabber messages from the partner demanding I do it, and showing the keygen key entered into vSphere wasn't good enough evidence ...........

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thecomputerguy7@reddit

I wonder if there’s a way to follow up

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KindlyGetMeGiftCards@reddit

Back in the days of XP we had a client that constantly formatted their own computers and used a cracked copy of xp, when literally the cd key was printed on the side of the computer. When Microsoft started to crack down it they basically disabled windows updates for cracked versions of xp, the company needed the updates to work so it was a format by us to fix it. They also cracked photoshop or acrobat, one of them. This company was never above board on other tasks, so it shows their morels and I was happy to dump them when the time came. I feel sorry for the guy who they hired to replace us, he was asking why he can't see the web interface for the router, it was a cisco and you needed to use the cli, ie ssh or telnet, he was in way above his head, but I wasn't there to teach, just support, they always went the cheapest option.

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c3corvette@reddit

Yeah but I put a stop to it and did it right.

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firefistus@reddit

I had a company that used winzip for the whole org. They only had a 10 user license. We were 500 strong.

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thortgot@reddit

Report any company stupid enough to go down this route. If a company can't afford to pay for software licensing, they can't afford to pay you well.

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d3photo@reddit

Reported former employers. Never heard a word about it later.

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maxlan@reddit

On the other hand what they don't spend on software they can spend on your salary. Imagine going to finance and saying "give me a 20% pay rise and I slash your software costs" :-)

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Ssakaa@reddit

... you know, that's a fun one on a resume. "Optimized software purchasing/licenses, saving 50% on software licenses." ... and then leave for a raise on top of that 20% before the house of cards comes crashing down. That has CEO material written all over it.

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mtgguy999@reddit

Hiring manager: oh I bet he switched to Linux and other open source alternatives, or got rid of software no one was using…. You: I went a different way

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Parking_Media@reddit

Get back to shittysysadmin where that comment belongs lol

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Ok_Exchange_9646@reddit (OP)

True

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Mike312@reddit

I did, but it was a firm in China. My first day in the office a kid came around with a binder full of DVD-Rs with serials written on them and through Baidu translator asked me what software I needed and loaded it onto my personal laptop. I erased all that shit before I got back to the US and did a factory restore of the full OS when I got back home. AFAIK, they never got hacked.

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dfc849@reddit

Cracked? No. We did have software that were tied to USB dongles, and eventually the vendor admitted "we stopped validating keys on version x.x, use that information how you wish" Another software that was developed for Win7, and activated via dongle OR internet. They wanted us to go with internet registration, so we never got dongles. We upgraded a few machines to Win10.. The activation reset to a 30 day trial and wouldn't take the key. Vendor said they were investigating. Trial never ended. They said, "well if it works" There was one industry "shareware" that was circulated as a courtesy to some companies who were a few versions behind, to keep up with some new features.

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daniell61@reddit

Place where I work is in the six digit cracked license software range in one state. One. I nope far the fuck away from that shit

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DayFinancial8206@reddit

No but one org I've worked at had two Tier 2 Helpdesk people passing pirated games between each other and installing it on their work devices, they were caught. They still work there.

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lamar5559@reddit

The first MSP I worked for used a pirated ticketing system. I didn’t stay there too long.

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JJHall_ID@reddit

I've worked at a few mom & pop companies over the years, and they all had some kind of unlicensed software installed. This was a long time ago so it was before the ransomware stuff came about, but they never had any issues with any sort of malware. The last couple of companies I've been with are completely above board unless you count some "trialware" software that is being used well beyond the trial period, or software everyone assumes is free, but is "free for personal use" with a price attached for commercial use. I convert those over as I learn about them, or get the end user to switch to something else.

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Remarkable-Way-5482@reddit

Hahaha, yes. They never pay me for tools and my manager told me to just crack it and forget about it. So I did, and that was a red flag for me. I'm no longer working in this corp.

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entyfresh@reddit

I had a client who crypto locked his entire business by trying to pirate AutoCAD

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RCTID1975@reddit

Probably cheaper to deal with crypto than Autocad's legal team

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malwareguy@reddit

Every single large fortune 500 with international presence. If you have presence in central or south America you have pirated software. It's just part of a way of life there, same with most Asian countries. If you claim it doesn't exist you're just not aware of it yet.

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nighthawke75@reddit

A private school had 300odd Acrobat pro licenses. Adobe reported over 1000 instances. They had two weeks to clean house.

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jlaine@reddit

No, but I've found it on one of our helpdesk users pc's and got nothing done about it, "it was for training purposes" so I blew it to shreds on purpose.

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MrSanford@reddit

Back in the early 2000’s the majority of places I worked with had pirated software. There were a few computer stores that offered business service and used the local high schools volume licensing for XP, server 2000, server 2003, and cracked versions of office.

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Godcry55@reddit

There are crack servers that you can use. Would I recommend in an enterprise environment? Nah.

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lordmycal@reddit

Yup. Had a boss that bought Solarwinds and didn't see any value in upgrading it since it still did what he wanted it to do. Then that version got so old he could no longer activate it when he moved it to new hardware. So he cracked it because he wasn't going to give those bastards any more money because they were trying to extort him. He got fired a few years later and we licensed all the things after that.

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billiarddaddy@reddit

Yep. Eventually they upgraded and we played dumb when it wouldn't activate.

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skeetgw2@reddit

They tried to and I refused/resigned and reported it. No idea if anything came of it though.

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GullibleDetective@reddit

We had a company that frequently bought software and machines out of the back of a.van.. literally They also got audited and fined and Ms compliance came down hard on em

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Igot1forya@reddit

A PC repair shop I worked at had a copy of Symantec Corporate edition (stolen from the local university) and he would sell installs to customers for $25 each.

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No-Combination2020@reddit

All the IT guys had a copy of corp from someone somewhere. That shit had no activation.

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Igot1forya@reddit

Yep, it was the charging of his unknowing customers that got me.

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Annual-Inspection673@reddit

In developing countries it is normal, even the government uses cracked software. Who is going to spend money to buy Microsoft office.

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ItsAlwaysDNSLad@reddit

Used to, 60 ish employees. Licenses were deemed "too expensive". Mostly cracked MS software including WinServer licences. No ransomware, nothing (fortunately). The company declared bankruptcy soon after I left so eh🤷‍♂️

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No-Combination2020@reddit

This what we call the "writing on the wall". If they can't pay for the gas to run their vehicles you just see the gage slowly run to empty as everything crumbles.

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ItsAlwaysDNSLad@reddit

Yup. It was a long time coming honestly. Combination of bad seasonal business and a big project going 1M$ over budget; the timing sealed the deal. The bank locked all the accounts while the owner was on vacation surfing, he came back and announced to all the employees to not come in next week and apply for unemployment. Glad I was already gone lol. Although to his credit, everybody got their last pay, no exception. I heard between the cracks that he had to open a loan (probably not to his name) to pay for everyone's last paycheck. Incredibly shitty and abusive boss, but had his priorities in the right place.

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double-you-dot@reddit

Not cracked, but installed on more desktops (10?) than the license provided (1). This was in the early 90s. I didn’t stay there long.

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BitOfDifference@reddit

its pretty prevalent at SMBs, used to see it all the time. I even found some when started working where i work now. I also found the old IT guy was playing with trojans. I didnt bother telling anyone because i got them to buy software at every opportunity. It took a few years, but they have been clean for a while now. With that said, we did have two software vendors who made our lives difficult with licensing. We cracked/bypassed their licensing scheme, but always made sure we were good with the licensed software count. Both have since revised their process and we were able to go back to normal. I got so mad at one of them, that i told them that i could bypass their dumb licensing model and how i could do it. Seems that got them thinking of better solutions ( yea, i was being a dick ).

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Ok_Exchange_9646@reddit (OP)

Mfw I always think of Server Message Block when I read SMB. In this context it's clearly Small To Medium Business 😭

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Horace-Harkness@reddit

Office and Adobe. I had the CYA emails explaining we needed to go legit and the reply that we couldn't afford it. $100k to BSA plus buying all the needed licenses. We then only used OEM licenses for Office because they were the cheapest. Had a drawer with 100+ of the little key cards in it.

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meshambre@reddit

It is much smarter to use KMS docker for licensing all machines (or just part) in the company than to crack windows.

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Ok_Exchange_9646@reddit (OP)

The last thing I'd ever use cracked is the fucking OS lmao

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Hollow3ddd@reddit

Military 2000’s era

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illicITparameters@reddit

I stopped that over a decade ago. I’ll happily narc on a copy these days.

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djgizmo@reddit

Yes. The owner was a sleezeball

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ibanez450@reddit

Nope, when I had some serious skills under my belt and could afford to be cocky during interviews, I would actually ask the interviewer if the company used unlicensed software. Granted, the interviewer probably doesn’t know, but their reaction to the question told me all I needed to know about how the company operated.

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systonia_@reddit

Got hired into a company once that had all sorts of cracked stuff. But having Sophos as a VM running in trial mode with a script that would spin up a new one and automatically configure it, including vlans, Antispam, VPN and policies every 4 weeks actually impressed me. Noped out of there asap as this was the CEOs way of operation. It was all just hacky shit on old hardware . They even had their msdos-era ERP system running on a physical PC straight out of win95 times. It was a nightmare

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turtle_botherer@reddit

No, but a friend of mine does. Pretty much everything is cracked at his workplace. I personally use a lot of cracked software, and I also crack quite a bit of software myself if I can't find it online. However, I don't use any of it permanently in production, its primarily so I can generate a new license in a hurry if I need to while I wait for an official one from the supplier (which sometimes takes weeks). It's saved my bacon quite a few times now. I'm also fine with using cracks for training or demonstration purposes, or other one-off situations where the software provider doesn't provide a suitable license option. With cracks I haven't made myself, I always deploy them in no-internet VMs, there's a lot of dodgy shit out there.

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NoCup4U@reddit

No…….your honor.

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Pctechguy2003@reddit

An old call center company used some cracked office versions. That got shut down by MS. Then they had us use some cracked third party software for PC management that interfaced with VNC. I left not long after, and my understanding is that CIO got yeeted very far after the CEO found out.

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TheWino@reddit

The company I was at did it with office until someone reported them. It was around 300k to be in compliance.

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_BoNgRiPPeR_420@reddit

It's more prevalent in SMB than in large businesses, but it happens everywhere. I used to work for a software company, and a lot of the shitty MSPs we dealt with had cracked software on their customer servers. Probably stuff they billed the customer for on paper but provided a cracked version and pocketed the difference. This is also why a lot of companies are moving their product to SaaS and removing perpetual licenses.

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TexasPeteyWheatstraw@reddit

I have seen this and corrected it with many companies. Most are cheap owners that dont want to pay, or dont feel they need to. Microsoft cleared that up a few years ago with the audits.

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cidknee1@reddit

I remember those days. I was at a shady msp and the two owners( one good one a twat) had a lot of you are doing what? Meetings.

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fonetik@reddit

I worked for a place that ran cracked versions of Adobe but they had licenses.

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Humble-Plankton2217@reddit

Yes, a Warehouse office supply company I worked for had bought a smaller company (years before I onboarded) that came with a weird invoicing software. Instead of buying licenses for it, they had IT touch every PC once a month to re-apply a trial .lic file, which reset the 30 day timer on it. I started looking for another job as soon as I saw them doing that. It was a strong and accurate first indicator of the cheapness and ethics issues that permeated the entire business. Glad to see the back of them.

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TexWolf84@reddit

Dude I worked for a company that the owner had his MCSE, and got a binder of lab use only software and keys, and would use them whenever possible literally had a client buy SharePoint, rather than purchase the license(we were a authorized reseller), he used his Not For Resale Key. Client got audited my Microsoft and caught, boss was able to provide the invoice where he "ordered" the right key so it was all blown over by explaining away "oh, we just stood the environment up with the NFR key while the order processed, then didn't/forgot to update the license key when they came in" we also used Acronis for backups, he had 1 client buy the suite, then he'd use that key for ALL our clients. It was super fucked up.

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BeigeGandalf@reddit

Yeah AutoDesk stuff. I think the parent company had a judgement against it (for millions) some years after I was gone.

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SillyPuttyGizmo@reddit

Inadvertently we did Back in the late 90's we were running a novell network with windows servers and pc's and Mac's hanging off it. One day one of the techs got a call to install some Adobe software (don't remember exactly but page maker comes to mind) so he grabs what he thought was a fresh copy and heads out. About 20 minutes later every workstation on the network is getting a pop up message about the license being in use in more than one station. The tech was totally red faced when he got back to the office

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cidknee1@reddit

Yup. Well, same building 2 different companies. We split a data centre. He was pirating VMware. One of the x sys admins ratted them out with emails saying to do it copies of cracks server pictures of the vms everything. Kinda a scorched earth policy for him. They didn’t last much longer and sold out to the guy I was working for at Pennie’s on the dollar. Then we have to license and upgrade all the old shit with our stuff. We got plenty of emails from VMware asking us if it was legit etc.

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tech_sledge@reddit

Why hasn't MS closed the Entra P1 / P2 and other loopholes? I bet there are a fair few MSPs and other companies skirting their licensing obligations here.

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thepfy1@reddit

Yes, a long time ago. They no longer exist.

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reubendevries@reddit

I've worked in IT for over 20 years almost, I've seen almost everything... thankfully I moved on from the companies that did that nonsense before Ransomware was a major thing.

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pdp10@reddit

No organizations ever used any cracked software. One acquired organization probably used a bit, but we never actually found it, as far as I know. They definitely used gray-market license dongles. Investing in unlicensed software has an even worse RoI than investing in expensively-licensed software, especially for an organization.

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kuldan5853@reddit

Well I can say that I've never worked for a company that didn't have at least some "license backlog". Normally not cracked though but simply a MAK license that didn't grow with the usage / was forgotten about (so, no malicious intentions, just.. ignorance). I tend to fix these issues as I find them.

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arlissed@reddit

I worked for a small MSP that used cracks for EVRYTHING, same password for every service account you could imagine. I wasn't there long, I was hired away by one of their clients, where we finally got to use that outstanding IT budget my former employers never bothered to touch. Got them 100% compliant in a matter of weeks.

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Maxplode@reddit

Got called in to help with some kind of security audit. This was before Cyber Essentials was a thing. Anywho, turned out a whole team of users were using an outdated copy of Photoshop, so had to uninstall it, then after the auditor left one of their team went round reinstalling it. They did this last year as well apparently

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Sekhen@reddit

Nope. Foss and paid SaaS stuff only.

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linux_n00by@reddit

but why would you allow them to have admin access to install stuff though?

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lurkerfox@reddit

I have, but the company did actually pay for a license, the issue was the license checker was broken and they wouldnt fix it, so a cracked copy was saved alongside the license key lol No ransomware or anything cause it was cracked in house.

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thesals@reddit

I had users with pirated software on personal devices that they were using for business use.... Adobe got up our ass about it... Took a while to figure who it was that was doing it and we terminated them.

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KrabRide@reddit

Nice try Microsoft.

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khantroll1@reddit

Not in decades. However, I will say both of the MSPs I worked for in the mid aughts used al lot of cracked XP and Office. Especially in house, but even on a few customers. It was insane.

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MedicatedLiver@reddit

There is a client that is using the Office365 family plan for their business machines. I do not touch any of that and all logins and payments and everything is entirely on their personal. I've told them, and they don't listen because, "We've been able to use it for years like this." Except they constantly have machines that log out of the account because it's shared, etc. At least I got them to not buy some jank ass used machines off eBay to upgrade the Win7 machines with Core2 and early i-series CPUs they had last year.

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gaybatman75-6@reddit

Maybe not exactly what you’re asking but I had several people using pirated adobe products despite having a license to the whole suite. Unluckily for them when I went to my manager who would have handled it nicely, his manager was there and he doesn’t use kid gloves with stuff like that(rightly so). They had me lock their AD accounts and remotely shut down their machines while our network team blocked their devices from connecting until we could verify that the software was gone. During all of that an email was sent to HR with their trio of managers on it explaining what we found, where it violates policy, and that those machines would be offline until re-imaged and their accounts blocked until HR weighed in. Two of their managers threw a shit fit and the third was on our side and spent plenty of time at our desks shit talking that department.

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jeezarchristron@reddit

Long ago I was asked to download Geek Squad's entire website and reskin it with our logos. Told the boss that was not entirely possible or legal. I did change VNC's appearance and about info to make it look like our software. Needless to say I left after a few months.

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numtini@reddit

Not cracked, but when I came into a new position, I did find that their amateur IT person had decided that if there were 4 stickers with a serial number in a package, they interpreted this as being 4 licenses. Thankfully, I didn't get any grief about getting legal.

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SomeRandomBurner98@reddit

Yes, briefly. A lawfirm pirating document management software whose vendor was "aggressive" about licensing. Onboarded the customer, did the software scan, passed the results up. Not even a week later I also off-boarded the customer and a couple of months further down the road I received what I was told at the time was an "Externally sourced bonus" (share of the bounty for reporting them was implied).

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IForgotThePassIUsed@reddit

nope, I was just a field tech before my current role, so every encounter I had (3 or so times) I was told to write down what it is, and if it has to do with the ticket I'm handling, tell the client I need to leave and our office will follow up and leave. if not involving my ticket, finish your ticket, still document it and it will be discussed between our client account rep and the client that they need to get rid of that shit or we're beginning 30 day offboarding. none of the places I worked for that provided services would tolerate that shit.

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chance_of_grain@reddit

I think my first IT job they did. These days with audits and stuff I won't touch cracked software with a 10 foot pole

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IRideZs@reddit

Had some dumbass admin use a cracked copy of windows during a image building process, he had no idea this was a bad idea, I was but a lowly level 1 with no sway, eventually someone listened and we pulled it over time, but holy fuck this guy was an idiot

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PaladinInc@reddit

No. Instant deal breaker. It's not even about the software, it's what it says about the culture of the organization and where their priorities are.

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ephemere_mi@reddit

I have not, and I would not.

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