If Empress works for Denuvo and uses company information to crack the games, would there be a way to tell?
I remember there being some rumors and speculation as to whether Empress worked for or was working at Denuvo. I think this is basically speculatory given they were "The only one" to crack it so it does follow the rule of Occam's Razor in this instance, issue is if it's true it can both raise questions and answer them as to why they went to ground all of a sudden, for example;
"Why did they stop?" - Well maybe the company did think it's an internal source doing this so has beefed security and put tabs on their workers, which means Empress is now backing off in an attempt to not be caught
I don't personally believe they were working for Denuvo
at the time and may have had some time with them given the level of vitriol they would put into their little manifestos toward Denuvo at some point, it does imply a level of personal grievance with the company, but this is the internet and some people are willing to take up fucking Jihads over something as retarded as "They changed the colour of my favourite mascot's arms". It could account to why Empress
could crack Denuvo and then suddenly (at least publicly) couldn't any longer, the fact he might've been using a method and work around which internally they figured out and dealt with which he has no access to any longer. With the fact he was purposefully cracking games which would bring him attention and notoriety (So to say, he was only cracking games he knew would grab headlines) it seems with the amount of games since which definitely fit his MO which had been uncracked (More recently, Borderlands 4) it does fit to me he's past it.
As for "Is there any way to tell?" This is answered simply; Noone has yet definitely found out who Empress is (We have speculation afaik, although he might be phonebooked 100% in this thread, I forget) and if they had, Denuvo would've done by now also and would definitely be ripping Empress a brand new one even to this day for the action of cracking their DRM, regardless of it being in the past, they could likely sue Empress into the fucking ground and depending on where Empress is from, likely tack on some jail time for good measure. I'm obviously no fucking expert in technology based forensics but you can bet your brightest Denuvo would've or has hired serious professionals to attempt to find out who Empress was to fuck them over, like there's no way in hell they wouldn't given how each crack fucked with Denuvo's business model and caused game companies to be dubious about using it until Empress stopped.