Pretty much. They took a run at us about 10 years ago. I wrote a sort of semi-popular blog post about figuring out what crypto an app uses by looking for constants for particular crypto algorithms using IDA, and they looked me up in their license database and freaked out publicly because I wasn't registered. We privately pointed out that we were using a letter-coded license on behalf of a client, and they called us liars because they could only think of a few clients they had with such a licensing arrangement (obviously, we weren't in a position to tell them which client it was).

This is, again, for a simple mention of IDA in a public blog post.

After Ilfak left DataRescue to do Hex-rays, his Hex-rays IDA pages kept the one blacklisting the dude they had caught pirating.

Amusingly, the DataRescue IDA page is basically only about piracy now:

http://www.datarescue.com/idabase/

Whatever the "expectation" about piracy there is for IDA, it seems safe to say the IDA people themselves don't share it.

They're very difficult to deal with. Renewing my license which was in my name, but at a company I didn't actively work with, was a pain. Even though I had a valid email address at the company in question (part owner). They wanted the company to verify I was allowed to pay them to buy the product. Took over a week IIRC for me to give them money.

Then, if you lose your downloads (in my case, corrupted file) and your contract expires, you're out of luck. Since they make a separate EXE for each customer, they don't provide any way of getting the software once your support contract ends. Seems silly, considering pirated copies are readily obtainable.

But, they're the best so they can act like this and get away with it.

Second paragraph of Hex-Ray's stance on piracy https://books.google.com/books?id=3nPAM3AZ1foC&pg=PA32&lpg=P...

Especially since there is no way I'm buying this as a hobbyist. I'd like to have it, but I don't need it and can't afford it - so I either pirate it or won't use it.

If I got access, by pirating, or having a free / subsidized / university version, I might be able to develop my skills such that I can use this professionally, and would certainly be able to buy a license (and ongoing support).

But like this, the only way I could "get into" IDA Pro is by using it at a company where the bought a license.

Also, the developers should really release a new demo/evaluation version, supporting 64 bit.