Aris had already been burned once. The "libusb-filter-installer.exe" from a site called drivers-for-free.biz had bricked his test machine so badly he’d had to reflash the BIOS.

He rewrote it. He changed the counter limit to 2,147,483,647—the max for a signed 32-bit integer. That was over 68 years. Then he recompiled the driver, signed it with a self-generated test certificate, and forced Windows to accept it.

Aris’s fingers flew across the keyboard.

Smart. Or stupid. Depends on your risk tolerance. I'll send you a link. But there's a story attached.