testing for warez/cracked programs ??

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.

 

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

 

I agree.
I'd contact the developer.

 

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.

 

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)

 

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. And even stranger, the program continues to work afterwards.