SA engineer slapped with R100,000 demand for pirated copy of Solidworks

rvZA said:
Ask a R100k for a license fee and you will get the s**t pirated out of your software. Now hackers will find a more effective way to ensure you never pick up on users again.
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Companies need to spread out development cost over number of customers. The more specialized it is the more expense. Believe me - when it comes to engineering software R100k is *cheap*. And they do have hobbyist programs. But you can't just pirate the full version because 'it is expensive'. And pirating software on a work laptop is just a Darwin move.
 
if you have unlicensed, cracked software running on your work laptop or torrent downloads on your hdd... within 24 hours.....you get a nice reminder from IT - to remove unlicensed software.... and follow up by "please complete refresher tutorial : Unlicensed software, Illegal downloads on your work issued laptop" from HR .... and a session booked with your division HR and line manager...
 
skusku said:
Curios to know how they detected the software was installed on a specific pc and then link it to the company
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A lot of proprietary software has a call home function to keep track of it. Same goes for many (most) mobile apps too.
 
Malwarebytes is doing the same, even when running the "free version" past a certain date, demanding compensation - BEWARE
 
daveza said:
In 20 years, never dealt with a single company that does that.
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Standard practice at corporates, the ones who don't do this are the same ones that don't take their it department seriously and end up being text book case study examples of what not to do.
 
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Thats why i keep to Notepad++ and WinSCP on my work machine
 
skusku said:
Curios to know how they detected the software was installed on a specific pc and then link it to the company
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Jip, something does not add up.

He left out some information.
 
Something similar happened to me. I use my laptop for both private and work use. I installed the community edition license of Embarcadero Delphi on my laptop since I write only for myself and freeware (I was involved with Delphi since it's early inception when it was codenamed 'Polaris'). I write nothing for my work. I started getting threatening letters from Embarcadero that I must purchase a license for my work. I only ever used the new installation once for a demo ping tool. Somehow, data must have reached them that I use my laptop for work. There must be some mechanism they use to monitor it. I tried to explain the situation but received no feedback, just more threats. I simply removed the software and never attempted to use Delphi ever again. Have been Delphi-free now for more that 2 years, I don't need this nonsense.
 
It's probably a lot easier - the software calls home with telemetry which most likely includes your email profile addresses and whatever else. I'm pretty sure this kind of action would be a privacy violation in many countries and shortly here too unless of course its agreed to in the terms.
 
Thor said:
Jip, something does not add up.

He left out some information.
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Probably not rocket science or advanced IP tracing. Several methods:
1) e-mail address that was entered during installation
2) organisation that was automatically filled/ entered during installation
3) Software feedback system that posts information back, including the registered organisation for the Windows installation. If you want to see that info on your PC just punch the following into PowerShell:
Code: 
Get-WmiObject -Class Win32_OperatingSystem -Namespace "root\cimv2" | format-list Organization,RegisteredUser
 
Johand said:
Probably not rocket science or advanced IP tracing. Several methods:
1) e-mail address that was entered during installation
2) organisation that was automatically filled/ entered during installation
3) Software feedback system that posts information back, including the registered organisation for the Windows installation. If you want to see that info on your PC just punch the following into PowerShell:
Code: 
Get-WmiObject -Class Win32_OperatingSystem -Namespace "root\cimv2" | format-list Organization,RegisteredUser
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Powershell 3 and up it's been superseded by CimInstance:
Bash: 
Get-CimInstance -Class Win32_OperatingSystem -Namespace "root\cimv2" | format-list Organization,RegisteredUser

Note CimInstance is backward compatible with the default installed powershell in W10 as well, and has been for a long time (since CimInstance change was Windows Server 2012 if I remember correctly), I would suggest you swap over those commands.
 
Good luck with that. There's no way for them to enforce that licensing.
 
It's a stupid move, and I would like to say that I have never used pirated software on my Work PC. However, December 27 - 31 at the office would have been quite boring without essential software like Quake 3.
 
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skusku said:
But in SA we have dynamic IP addresses
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Dynamic IP addresses exist all over the world. Doesn't mean all businesses have them. Static IP addresses have a lot of benefits.

As a home user, you're far better off with a dynamic IP though.

That said, a dynamic IP doesn't make you anonymous, especially since all IPs are logged by the relevant ISP, and each ISP only has a limited IP range which is usually well documented by IP lookup websites.
 
daveza said:
Uhm, no they don't - I would be the one they ask - and they haven't.
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Well then I have no idea what kind of backwater low effort places you work for.

The last three large enterprises and even the much smaller business I work for now constantly do software auditing and license monitoring with a huge list of approved and restricted software and warning triggers in between.
 
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