[jaffacake2000]

Do software manufacturers check if you have installed software that is pirated ?
would they come around knocking on every door of every business, because as far as i know we buy software and thats the licence but know one checks if the other person is using a software that is reverse engineered for example without buying it ?

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This probably should have been posted in "Off-Topic" forum... perhaps admin will move it.

Do software manufacturers check if you have installed software that is pirated ?

Overall, I would say the answer is yes, and no. A lot of applications "call home" once you install them thereby alerting the software manufacture that their software is being used. The information that can get sent to the manufacture can vary, but certainly you IP/ISP information is sent and they can use that to help identify you if they really wanted to pursue it. On the other hand, there are possibly millions of computers with pirated software onboard throughout the world, and manufactures may not have to time nor resources to trace every single pirate... however, it just takes that one time when they decide to check on you! Any amount of penalty or jail time is not worth it!

[makai]

This probably should have been posted in "Off-Topic" forum... perhaps admin will move it.

Do software manufacturers check if you have installed software that is pirated ?

Overall, I would say the answer is yes, and no. A lot of applications "call home" once you install them thereby alerting the software manufacture that their software is being used. The information that can get sent to the manufacture can vary, but certainly you IP/ISP information is sent and they can use that to help identify you if they really wanted to pursue it. On the other hand, there are possibly millions of computers with pirated software onboard throughout the world, and manufactures may not have to time nor resources to trace every single pirate... however, it just takes that one time when they decide to check on you! Any amount of penalty or jail time is not worth it!

[Neil Jones]

Software that is reverse-engineered is generally reversed for a reason. Some people simply want to see how it works and its no different to taking the top off the video recorder to see how it feeds the tape in. Whether it still works when you've put it back together is a different matter. Open-source software is a good example where you can download the source code.

Other people reverse-engineer to crack the software, the most famous example of which is XP Professional. These days Windows Genuine Advantage nags people with non-genuine XP and it calls home as well (or used to) and Microsoft can track where cracked copies are coming from and take appropriate action.