Der8auer reports that Lamptron is selling illegal AIDA64 dongles with its LCD-equipped products — including LCD air coolers and dedicated LCDs for hardware monitoring. FinalWire Ltd., the manufacturer of AIDA64, confirmed to Der8auer that Lamptron bundles free invalid AIDA64 keys with its products and has done so for some time. FinalWire asked Lamptron to stop this dubious practice, but it didn’t. Der8auer suspects that Lamptron uses some kind of key generator to generate fake AIDA64 keys that will validate, but only on select versions of the software.
The German overclocker first discovered Lamptron’s dubious tactics through one of his employees who heard about Lamptron AIDA64 product keys not working on a forum two years ago. Deciding to see if this was true or not, Der8auer pulled the “free” AIDA64 key from his Lampton ST060 air cooler to see if it would work.
He found the key worked as advertised. The box says that the AIDA64 key “is a free version and does not support online upgrades.” Plugging the key into AIDA64 activates the product without any problems. However, the AIDA64 update caused the key to become invalid (just like the box info says).
After contacting FinalWire, the makers of AIDA64 confirmed that Lampton’s “free” AIDA64 keys are invalid and illegal. He reports that Lampton registered as a reseller two years ago, but only placed one order for the AIDA64 Extreme. FinalWire finally reveals that it’s unclear whether Lampton ever included valid licenses with its devices.
“We understand your concern regarding the “FREE VERSION” license included with the cooler. Unfortunately, we have discovered instances of Lampton bundling invalid AIDA64 licenses with their products. When we became aware of this, we immediately contacted Lamptron and asked them to stop this practice. Although they registered as a reseller two years ago and placed one order for AIDA64 Extreme, it is not clear if they ever included valid licenses with their devices.”
Der8auer tested several other Lampton AIDA64 keys from several other products and found them all to be invalid. Some of these are also labeled as different versions, including AIDA64 Extreme and AIDA64 Business, although Lampton only officially purchased AIDA64 Extreme at one time.
Lampton uses its free AIDA64 keys to power its LCD displays. The company’s displays do not have any software included and therefore require third-party software to operate. AIDA64 has a feature that allows users to create their own OSD specifically for secondary hardware monitoring displays.
The German overclocker shared all five additional keys he tested with FinalWire. FinalWire reported that all the keys were invalid, strongly suggesting that Lampton is using some sort of key generator.
“Unfortunately, none of the product keys you shared are valid in our system. This strongly suggests that they were generated illegally using a tool like keyGen,” FinalWire Ltd. stated.
So far, no one has taken legal action against Lampton for selling illegal AIDA64 keys. But if it continues to provide these keys against FinalWire’s wishes, the company is clearly at constant risk of serious consequences.