Apparently Mark at SysInternals recieved some “answers” to his earlier blog entries from the company, First 4 Internet, that developed the rootkit with a drm addon for Sony. Read Mark’s response here, looks like he was not impressed.

Instead of admitting fault for installing a rootkit and installing it without proper disclosure, both Sony and First 4 Internet claim innocence. By not coming clean they are making clear to any potential customers that they are a not only technically incompetent, but also dishonest.

The one thing I find most annoying about this is how to explain this to my non-tech savy friends. They just use Windows XP as it is configured by default, all users have administrator rights and so on, and have no idea that there can be anything more than music on a music CD they’ve bought nor that applications and drivers can be installed simply by them putting a music CD into their computer. Most just take for granted that when an dialog opened from a, for example, Sony CD, tells them that they must click accept to be able to listen to an album that no harm will be done to their computer.

I wish that music CDs could’ve stayed being just music CDs.