My friend works for a company which requires her to use Microsoft specific application, she didn’t really want to switch to Win 11 and choose to just use Wine Linux package and install a 2016 version of MS office on her Linux laptop. That’s all well and good, but this company she is working for servers other clients at pretty high up places and she is terrified that she using the pirated version of MS would create a liability for her company as if Microsoft wants to target pirated software, they hunt for organisations rather than individuals.

So, what should she do? Is there a way you can hide the fact that the excel sheet was created on pirated software, is it even possible to tell excel sheets apart which are using pirated software?

PS: If there is a way to destroy all metadata related to the excel sheets, it would be very helpful.

edit: Thanks to everyone who chipped in for an answer, gonna suggest her to either ask her employer to give her the necessary software + hardware and if denied quit. I now realize this is not the norm in any company but hers. Anyways, thanks everyone.

  • stoy
    756·
    8 months ago

    PS: If there is a way to destroy all metadata related to excel sheets, it would be very helpful.

    No, it would look like she is hiding something far worse.

    It is an insane suggestion to even concider, it is far, far worse to have zero metadata than to have a bit of odd metadata.

    If the sheets are tagged as being crested by a pirated version of excel then she could feign ignorance and pretend she has zero idea of what is going on, if the meta data is gone, she would be known as someone with something to hide.

    Also, why the fuck is she editing company documents on her personal computer?

    That is by far the main problem.