People have all sorts of attitudes toward software licensing. The “right thing to do” is always to properly license the software you use.  Software theft has its consequences in many ways, besides simply being ILLEGAL. Sometimes pirated software has viruses or trojan horses.

Intego.com has recently reported a security alert: “New Variant of Mac Trojan Horse iServices Found in Pirated Adobe Photoshop CS4” (http://www.intego.com/news/ism0902.asp)     They report this trojan horse is found in pirated software distributed by BitTorrent trackers and sites linking to pirated software.   Once you download PhotoShop CS4, there is a “crack application” that extracts the executable and once the administrator enters their password, a backdoor application is launched and your troubles begin.  Check their site for a full explanation.    

The bottom line is BEWARE… don’t ask for trouble by trying to do things illegally.   Yes, those developers at Adobe deserve to be paid for their work to make these wonderful software tools we photographers use.

I use a PC, but many of my Mac user friends say one thing they love about their Mac is that they don’t have to worry about viruses and trojan horses and other “malware”.   Times are changing though.  So Mac users, you need to be careful also these days!