Verified trials do not currently require an internet connection when checking the remaining days. And we're continually improving our fraud detection / prevention (we have some new ones coming in 4.1).
We're also considering adding a version of verified trials that continually rechecks with the servers.
>> "Instead it just return the difference between the local system date (modified) and the trial expiration date. Is this behavior by design?"
It's a bit more complicated than that, but yes.