At this point in life, I think I have really been at my best as a Diamond Miner. My name is Tcat, and through much of life, that is what I have been known as. Diamond miners have to move tons of dirt to find a diamond, even in the rough.
Well, I was digging through the modern day dirt (The Internet) looking for a gem. It really doesn't matter the exact type. It was a deal on a rather obscure piece of software. As a researcher, of course I need to know practically everything. I had done my research, and was ‘sold'. I got to the order page. It said, enter your discount code if you have one.
I didn't.
How, please don't get me wrong here. Saving one or even ten dollars, given the option without giving up a pile of privacy? Sure. And nowhere in my research did I find a discount code.
That got me thinking. Is this baloney, or is there a discount? As a professional researcher, I had to find out.
And what I found was pretty ugly.
Blowing past the (sometime obscure) offers to sell me a "crack" (a crack is an illegal bypass for a legal install), I came across several site highly optimized to Google search that appear to meet British law. They clamed to be OEM and bundle re-sellers, at incredible discounts.
Of course there would be a great deal of limitations on buying an OEM strip-out for pennies on the dollar. And as I was looking to pay a few bucks to get beyond the restrictions of what the vendor offered as a demo (not enough demo for me!) I was ready to pony up a few dollars to see the real deal.
And the site (turns out many sites) SAYS, 100% and SSL and all that stuff that is supposed to make us feel warm and gooshy. And right in the title bar, it says http, not HTTPS. So not even an Attempt at the proclaimed security.
How does that work, legally? In any country that has the Internet? And given that, how am I suppose to even believe I can get a "fully licensed" copy, yet I cannot register it (so the creator cannot capture my ‘LE' version to up sell me later?) This makes zero sense from a legal or a commercial standpoint.
I haven't done all my homework on this (legally) yet. And I was quite suspired to find a group (S) that can make such bold claims as having SSL on an Internet site, and the title bar is not even lying and says it is, when it is not. (I have seen that in sites that are real and just technically challenged ... that is another topic since it puts you at a different risk).
So, I won't name site name, (yet). And the game seems centered in Great Britain. Quite unlike further east where they tell you upfront, give us a small % of the real costs and we'll sell you an illegal crack, in its own perverse way that seems much more honest.
At least you know you are hiring a thief.
Now I have to figure out a way to talk about the white hats I found, and not sound like some sort of shill or mouthpiece. Even diamond miners want to say, I found a cool site, and got what I want. Let me get some karma and tell you about it. Maybe I set a Part 2 link, and make the link active later.
Tcat loves doing research. You can help him with travel resarch by shopping his own Internet Travel Portal at Travel4RoadWarriors.com And please, don't spend any money there unless it is the best deal for you. He maintains the side for himself and friends. And we only use it in the complex world of the Intenet if is works for us too.
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