But worse than the lost work was the realization of why it happened. Elias hadn’t purchased the expensive CAD software the university required. A year ago, facing a semester of expensive textbooks and rent, he had panicked. He had gone down a digital rabbit hole, following forums that promised a "solution" to the high cost of entry. He had downloaded a keygen—a small, shadowy program designed to bypass the software’s license verification.

Elias stared. He whispered a denial, then a string of profanities. He hadn’t saved in two hours.

, including viruses and ransomware, disguised as the keygen. Legal Consequences: Unlicensed use of AutoCAD violates Autodesk's Terms of Use and can result in severe fines or professional penalties. Software Instability:

. Because they require you to disable antivirus software to run, they can easily infect your system without detection. System Instability