Anyone can grab my cell phone from my desk. But if I log into the website, I can lock and remotely wipe it, as well as tell the police where to look for it. I can even take pictures of the person who stole it, completely unbeknownst to the thief.
Some might say the best security systems are the ones the thieves don't know are there.
The only reason those thieves don't know they're there is because they aren't very knowledgable (if they weren't thieves I'd give them the benefit of the doubt, but you called it...)
Some might say that thieves should know what security systems may be there... I know if I was a thief I'd avoid stealing smart phones all together!
The best thieves already know what security systems are in place, the real battle is making sure they are actually secure.
So useless to everyone else... It's basically an ad-hoc DRM solution that gains no advantage to the end-user, while triggering un-known actions in an otherwise trusted piece of software.
Yes, that's why it's clever. The end user isn't aware it is there and it isn't harming them, but it's stopping other companies such as Franklin profiting from directly ripping off your work without your permission.
I'm not sure it was meant to be useful to an end-user. An end-user doesn't care if the computer he's using was stolen, counterfeited, etc. The company making the equipment and software does, and this is useful to them.
