Safety of torrents/P2P downloads/cracked software in general, is free really free?

Originally posted this to /t/ but been told by randoms to gtfo and post here.

I've been downloading and using cracked software from torrent/P2P trackers such as isohunt, tpb and demonoid for years. In general, you really have to be a "computer noob" to get infected by regular everyday malware and other malicious stuff, especially if you use decent AV software. I explained some general rules to my sister who is a complete computer noob and installed AV software for her - she literally never got her laptop infected after that. I'm talking mostly Windows here, Unix-like OS' are even safer so I won't mention those. I've used my Windows PC without any AV or anything but regular Windows firewall and regularly updated software only to run a full AV scan after two years and find not a single malicious thing on it or notice any performance loss, suspicious network usage, etc. This applies to torrents as well, especially if you download from trusted uploaders - if you know what you're doing, it's really hard to get your PC infected.

However, what I'm worried about is - are there trojans of some sort (or any kind of malicious software) that work under the hood so to say, or below OS level, in some sort of sandbox or something along those lines that might be included in cracked software that you or your AV software just cannot detect or prevent, no matter how good your AV is and no matter how computer-savvy you are? I'm talking "virus-illuminati" here or something :P
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Because I sometimes find it too hard to believe that I can just download some paid software for free and give nothing in return (seeding doesn't count if downloaded software is clean) to the guy who spent his time to crack the thing? I mean why would anyone crack stuff if they gain nothing from it? Cracking is not easy, it takes knowledge, time and resources. Why would a guy or a group of people spend their time, energy and resources to crack software which is often strongly protected or rip nearly every new movie that comes out, just for me to use or watch while they get nothing in return? Sure, putting your alias on it and being the first to crack and release something is cool. At best you will be praised by a large number of anonymous random internet users. But this won't feed you bread and will get boring after a while. Nothing is free in this world. So how can this be, it's too good to be true, at least for the end user? Is there something else behind this? What's the catch?

Tldr

Sounds like you're just young and don't know about the world.

>randoms
>:p
>walls of text
Lurk more

If you're really that afraid join a private tracker.

If cracked software were infected with malware undetectable by antiviruses a lot of security researchers would jump on it
most of the time the av will complain about cracks and I don't think that those are just false positive

im not reading that but yea its safe if you are not a illiterate.

Often the people who crack software enjoy it and adhere to a strict set of guidelines
But sourcing them from public sites is basically playing Russian roulette

Nope, nearly 30 yo, so not that young. I thought I knew about the world and had an opinion. Oh yes and using smileys and not using word anons... Kind of forgot about that shit since I wasn't around on Sup Forums for a while I guess (I changed a lot)

exigomusic.org
hydra.zone
fakedoor.store

>Why would a guy or a group of people spend their time, energy and resources to crack software which is often strongly protected or rip nearly every new movie that comes out, just for me to use or watch while they get nothing in return?

Because they can. It's a hobby, plus, the scene is basically a cyberpunk, except it in real life. You have all those Hollywood studios, game publishers, music labels - basically giant corporations with all their money, lawyers, engineers and they're being outsmarted by a bunch of illusive individuals. It's pretty cool.

>I mean why would anyone crack stuff if they gain nothing from it?
Why would anyone climb mt everest?
Why would anyone swim across the english channel?
Why would anyone go over niagra falls in a barrel?
Because they can. Because it's an experience. Because it's *them* doing it, and not having to live with someone else's experiences. They do it because it's there and it seems like fun.

Sure it makes sense, somewhat. But would you climb everest like every day unless you're a guide and getting other up people there for money, would you go over niagra falls in a barrel more than once if there's nothing in it for you anymore?

These people keep doing it all the time, they have teams, they have deadlines, you know and they crack/rip everything, not just challening stuff? All that just to put your anonymous alias on something and upload somewhere where most people don't give a fuck who you are and just want to watch the movie or use the software?

P.S.
OP (again) here, forgot to announce in previous two replies.

No, because those don't change.
But you would climb K2 after Everest. It's a similar kind of thing, but it's still vastly different.

I had to stop using torrents (outside of open source things like libreoffice) because my ISP got mad at me and shut my service off over a TV episode a few months ago (But i did get it back) What really sucks though is that I pay for said tv network that they tv show is on so it falls under fair use. It was total bullshit.

What you are describing would be called a rootkit. Basically, rootkits (once they have infected the system) live "beneath" the OS or IIRC in the same level as the kernel of the OS. They get loaded with the kernel before it starts the remainder of the OS. The rootkit can basically do anything in the system at that point, and be completely invisible. For example, a proper rootkit could spawn malicious processes that are hidden from all system utilities such as Task Manager, Resource Monitor, TaskList, etc. If one of those utilities attempts to monitor process in the system, the rootkit intercepts the information being returned, and hides it's processes from being listed. It could also hide it's network activity from being displayed, using similar techniques. The only way you can be aware of a rootkit IMO, is if you boot from another OS from different storage medium (CD or usb stick now-a-days). ESET and AVG make liveCD for this purpose that are free to use.

The feasibility of these rootkits depends on the OS you are using. AFAIK Win10 is much more protected from rootkits due to changes in OS architecture, and things like Secure Boot.

Could these be hiding in keygens and cracks? Certainly. Are they? Really hard to say. Some crack software gets flagged as malware because of the way it interacts with the process that it is designed to crack. Just the Windows API calls listed in the software can trigger AV. I suspect the real malware is the easy to spot copycat ones with the garbage titles, because, much like Nigerian e-mail scammers, once they get the gullible person's attention, maybe their systems are also less protected.

OP here
Like I just wrote in Yes but they crack everything, not just challenging and changing stuff, it appears it's their job. YIFI comes to my mind, Reloaded, many others...

Donations, epeen, all these things. Some of them do it for ideological reasons, following the the tenet "information wants to be free" as much as they can.

Yes I am aware of rootkits but unsure why I forgot to mention them.

Thank you for a very useful reply!

Get a seedbox and fuck them in the ass.

>[Safe] illegal internet use while a neonazi
corporatist oligarch is in the white house.

OP here, forgot to add in I just don't buy it that they do it simply because "sharing is caring", epeen or because they don't like big corporations, etc. If people were indeed like that, we'd be living in a much better world.

Call me crazy and paranoid but sometimes I believe all these (famous) and active crackers have their custom and very well coded and constantly updated rootkits and through constant software cracks/movie rips and other releases that they share using p2p they infect people creating zombies for botnets and whatnot. The possiblities are endless.

OP here, messed up reply links real bad, sorry about that... is update to my

The same can be asked for why people make free software.
It's a similar principle. Except cracking is making from that isn't free, free. Just not making it from scratch.

>If people were indeed like that, we'd be living in a much better world.
There don't have to be very many people who do that, just a few with a global platform. The good ones percolate to the top, and the bad ones get (rightly) slammed for doing scummy shit.

OP here
If you pay attention, you will find that free software is almost never actually free - it either has advertising in it, it has premium features that you can buy; it is free because it advertises a bigger software package that you can buy or it is a tool that is neccessary for using something else that you can buy, etc. Very few if any are truly free software that is regularly updated by the author(s) with no gain for them whatsoever.
At best it is some school or personal project that, in case people grew attached to, the author keeps running or if he too grew really attachedf to it, keeps updated. But this is rare and usually such things get disbanded and die eventually. This is not the case with software crackers, movie rippers and similar. They keep going forever and they are very active and up to date for some reason.

You're confusing freeware with truly free software.
"Free software" means free as in free speech, not free beer. It's not a matter of price. Freeware, on the other hand, is software that you can legally use for zero price, but is usually proprietary. Quite a few freeware programs have had legitimate malicious features (Flash, uTorrent..) and are, as you said, filled with ads.
But with true Free Software, not only there are usually no ads or other paid features, but since the code is open to the public, you can actually see what it's doing under the hood and even modify it.

>If you pay attention, you will find that free software is almost never actually free - it either has advertising in it, it has premium features that you can buy; it is free because it advertises a bigger software package that you can buy or it is a tool that is neccessary for using something else that you can buy, etc. Very few if any are truly free software that is regularly updated by the author(s) with no gain for them whatsoever.
You don't visit Sup Forums very much, do you?

You are somewhat right, I might've overlooked open source software to a degree, but as I said it is usually something that you need for using something else that is not free or by using it will being some kind of gain in the end. Point being, on the long run, the author still has something to gain from it. Nobody builds/does stuff for NOTHING imho.

Besides, cracks are not open source and cracker is not someone you will meet uploading open source stuff at github or whatever.

Yeah can't really afford that at the moment or a VPN. I've just used direct downloads the few times since or sometimes entire things are uploaded to youtube.