testing for warez/cracked programs ??

[acr1965]

Hello all. I recently made a purchase off eBay of a security product. After I won the "buy it now" (from someone with 275 feedbacks and 99.3% positive ratings) I got an email with a link to the license code and exe on speedyshare.com.

Now the funky part- I was trialing the product so I already had it downloaded. I just used the license code and inserted it into the product I was already running and everything worked fine. The license was supposed to be for a one year subscription...but despite a one year subscription the license on my product says it is good for 51,846 days (yes, that is 142+ years)!

I went ahead and downloaded the exe so I could run it through Virustotal. But the exe is too large as it is over 10 mb's. What I am wondering is there a place I can scan the exe I downloaded to see if it is some cracked version? Also, why would the license work in the legit exe? I downloaded it straight from the vendor site.

FWIW- the program has been running smoothly for over a day now. And it has "checked for updates" from the vendor with no weird feedback/pop-ups from the vendor.

[btman]

Who's going to give a negative rating for 142 years ?
I think the only way to see if its a valid key would be to send it to the makers of the program

[the Tester]

-{ Quote: "
I think the only way to see if its a valid key would be to send it to the makers of the program" }-

I agree.
I'd contact the developer.

[Beavenburt]

Theres loads of product keys floating around the internet that would appear to unlock unlimited trials in some software. ZA is notorious. I downloaded a genuine trial from Zonelabs and entered a key that unlocked the trial for 50000 days! My concience got the better of me though, so I removed it. Went with Comodo and never looked back. I would say you've been conned. It all depends on your concience what you do really. Use the software illegally, uninstall it or report it to the developer. Your call.

[Inspector Clouseau]

When buying online "license codes" ALWAYS request a existing customer number or transaction number of purchase. Everyone who's legal going to sell his license will give it to you. That's also a question of further support issues with the product, if the vendor doesn't know where you bought the product. (They are automatically assuming it's a pirated version then if you can't tell them where you got it from)

[lu_chin]

Sometimes it can be a bug in the program too. I had bought a security program and had been running it without issues. Then a new version came out recently so I downloaded the free upgrade and entered my current key and instantly the new version had a negative number of days left for trial. :D And even stranger, the program continues to work afterwards.