Yeah checksums are useless. But if you know assembly, you could diff the original binary with the crack and look for anything malicious.
Get software from reputable private trackers only
This is one of the single most important pieces of advice. Unless you have access to topsites, then this is about as close to the source as you are going to get, except for FitGirl repacks that can be DDLd from her site.
Make a dedicated user on your machine for pirated software. Never give that user root. Should contain it.
If you get the crack from a reputable source, you can trust it will be safe. A low seed torrent from a shady place (like The Pirate Bay) is probably a virus. High seed torrent from another source like 1337x or something with more active moderation is generally safe.
If you want to be extra sure, spin up a VM and install the crack there and check it out before doing it on your real machine.
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