It is a good rule of thumb that, if you know little about a subject, you should buy quality — buy from a big name. That's why people buy HP computers from Dixons: people who don't know anything about computers can always buy from them and be fairly assured that they will get a working system. Only the geeks like me are going to build from parts, reuse scavenged parts thrown out from work, and buy components from suppliers listed in the small ads — at least, it's only the knowledgeable that can do so safely. It's the same in most things: novice stock market investors should buy Shell, and not Lastminute.com; non-mechanics shouldn't buy cars that "need work". You don't get bargains by buying safe. But the world is a market, and if you try to get a bargain when you don't know the goods, the odds are that the people who do know what is what are the ones getting the better end of the deal.

All the big-name companies have to do, to keep the privileged position of being the company that the clueless go to, is get and keep a reputation for being honest sellers and providing working, safe kit. So what to make of Sony's rootkit-infested CDs? Surely, with all the ad campaigns about pirate CDs being poor quality, no support, risk of viruses etc, the one thing you don't want to do is give genuine CDs a reputation for having viruses, since that immediately removes the "reasonable argument" basis for buying genuine CDs: the reason (apart from the law) to buy genuine is that you get a safe, clean, no problems product. Or it was. Who is ever going to buy a DRM-protected CD from Sony again? Who is going to agree to a EULA from a company that has shown it uses the permissions granted to detrimentally tamper with your computer? And used the fact that the users don't know what it is doing as an excuse? With this making major news outlets like the BBC, whatever made them thing that tampering with people's PCs would be acceptable?

But enough ranting; the above is obvious to anyone reading the case. This is just an excuse to pile in on boosting the Google ranking of Russinovich's blog post — now up to the 13th hit for Sony on Google!