Deborah, You & I do not feel quite as strongly about this. However, the patched Poser is not checking passwords. It only wants to be sure that another copy of itself is not running on the same network at the same time. Nor does it cause firewalls to "freak out". These firewalls are deficient in their reporting methods in that they reported an internet connection attempt where none existed. Effectively, the firewalls caused us to freak out. It is as if you lost your own reputation due to the false gossip of others. The same thing happened to me. The only difference was that I was curious rather than particularly angry. Curious Labs neglected to inform of us of this aspect of the patch. Ideally they should have and have apologized. I'm not certain an apology was actually necessary but at least they recognize our concerns and fears. But other companies have used similar methods, also without prior advisement. It is an unfortunate but legitimate security method. It is not a trojan, which is usually characterized by a deliberate intent to do harm. In this case, the check only enforces something which you've already agreed to in the initial program license. I think that most of us believe that the Poser team has been relatively forthright with us in the past. They certainly have been more communicative than most other software publishers. When I weigh the history of their past behaviour against this single incident, I can readily forgive or excuse any misunderstandings. After all, surely everyone is entitled to at least one mistake (and this mistake is more in the nature of public relations than ethical misbehaviour). Until the day that they actively work against my legal use of the program and ease of use I will continue to trust them as I have in the past. I do not expect that day to arrive. While it is true that not everyone has your best interests at heart, eventually you have to trust someone based upon their past behaviour. If you never do, the universe will forever seem a very evil place indeed.