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Screenshot of the problem

I've been having a problem with my Illustrator copy. Last month, my photoshop 2022 version got the "you're using an unlicensed software pop-up" on it and every 60 seconds that I'd have the app on, it would automatically crash or force me to exit out of the application. It turns out that I had accidentally allowed Photoshop 2022 through LuLu, and it phoned home to Adobe. This time, I uninstalled it using the normal adobe uninstaller in the application drawer, reinstalled it, and it worked fine. As you can see, it's running in the background with zero issue and has worked since. However, I'm starting to think that "virus" for lack of a better term (because that's what I'd consider Adobe spyware -_- ) spread into some of my other adobe apps.

The above screenshot is showing Illustrator wanting to force exit despite being completely blocked and having zero internet functionality. This happened randomly today and I cannot for the life of me understand how it connected to adobe servers, as I have manually checked every port and app and process through LuLu that has wanted to connect using adobe, and all are completely blocked. It actually updated, showed me a "what's new" screen and gave me a tutorial with blue text bubbles, and even signed into my burner adobe account which it never had access to, yet still has zero internet connectivity when I try to use cloud extensions thanks to LuLu! I deleted and removed the installation and *every* related file that AppCleaner could find before I purged Illustrator 2022 from my computer for good.

I gave my mac a hard reset, and installed a newer copy of Illustrator 2023 which gives this same exact error. The app runs fine and functions normally, for around 70 seconds every time after startup before force-quitting. I deleted it meticulously again, and used the same illustrator 2022 installer. No luck, same popup and force quitting. I am running an M1 MacBook Pro 2TB 13' on Big Sur 11.6.8.

Any help would be much appreciated as I have a deadline I need to meet. Thanks Zii community.