Re: What's the real function?
I guess you were not there? It did. Oh boy, the time wasted.
Nowadays it works, as far as I can tell, and I have not really been bothered by it for a while. However,the headline of the last paragraph sort of sums up the concerns: it is apparently possible for the manufacturer to have this on by default with no way to disable it.
I'm also pretty sure it will play a role for DRM[0] and media playback. When do people learn that they do impact honest customers with that stuff? I know one could once totally get relatively recent movie releases in (for that time, it was decades ago) ok quality[1], or to get games with removed copy protection (viruses included...), and I very much doubt the situation has changed since [x], and do people remember the hardware hack for the PS1? DRM cannot win over crackers and pirates, history has shown that. It is just a way to annoy paying customers[w].
[0] anybody realised that the new Intel CPUs apparently cannot be used to play back high res BlueRay discs? The chip component is missing, as far as I understand. Since I own no BlueRay discs it does not impact me (I'm still stuck on DVDs...)
[1] at that time films were released in the US months before they came to Europe, so some friends organised them, we watched them, and then went to see them on the big screen, which was more fun
[x] there were cracked games for the C64 already, and that was over three decades ago!
[w] like the "don't copy this movie" trailer on DVDs - I doubt anybody who is determined to copy the disc is deterred by that, don't get me stated on that unskippable carp! People who watche ripped DVDs DO NOT SEE THAT ONE!
Biting the hand that feeds IT
