On the 20th of July 2006, this post appeared on the exetools cracker's board. The link allowed anyone to download a complete version of IDA Pro 5.0 advanced, our main product, licensed to Paul Ashton, of BlueLane.

A simple "whois" request revealed that the "randorisecurity" web site belonged to Andre Derek Protas, a self-proclaimed IT security "expert".

Andre Protas' web site was basically freely accessible and it contained a full pirate copy of the most advanced version of our software. How's that for someone supposed to have work in IT security and supposed to have some degree in criminal law?

The direct damage we suffered from Andre Protas' actions is staggering. It is not even remotely possible that Andre Protas could compensate it, should we decide to file a complaint against him. We have therefore elected Andre Protas to our "IDA Pro's Hall of Shame". Before hiring Protas, we ask you to consider the following

• Andre Protas claims to be a white-hat. His personal web site was however hosting a pirate copy of our software.
• Andre Protas claims to be an IT Security Expert. His web site lacked even an index page. .
• We will never deliver a new license for our products to any company or organization employing Andre Protas. If a company both employs Protas and uses IDA Pro 5+, that company is breaking our license agreement.

Call us old-fashioned, but if any DataRescue employee was caught harbouring and distributing pirate software on its private web site as Protas did, he'd be kicked out right away. We don't expect other companies to adhere to our strict standards, but we don't want to deal with them if they don't.

Feel free to contact us about this page.