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Change to encryption keys or regions changes the machine | 756 comments | Create New Account
Comments belong to whoever posts them. Please notify us of inappropriate comments.
Change to encryption keys or regions changes the machine
Authored by: tknarr on Thursday, July 19 2012 @ 04:39 PM EDT

Is it the same machine just because a different DVD has been put in? IMO no. You're talking about it performing one of it's standard functions, not changing it into something completely different. Not every change results in something new.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Change to encryption keys or regions changes the machine
Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, July 19 2012 @ 08:30 PM EDT
If I unplug your DVD player's power cord, does it somehow become a different machine? You say no, but it can't play DVDs on your TV anymore, right? Its "apparent" functionality may have changed, but I say its still the same machine that it always was, with the same _inherent_ functionality (the ability to play DVDs, at least when properly powered and connected to your TV).

Similarly, a general-purpose computer CPU is a machine with the _inherent_ functionality of being able to execute any algorithm which is expressible as a program made up of the instructions in that CPU's instruction set. Feeding a new program into it may change the "apparent" functionality that the user sees, but it doesn't actually _change_ what the machine is capable of. It is now capable of executing that particular program for you, but it was _always_ capable of that. In fact, it was always capable of executing _any possible program_ you could write for it. That's the whole point of a general-purpose computer, it has been clearly understood by computer scientists for more than 60 years, and things were fine until idiot lawyers and judges who think they know everything came along and started making up legal fictions about what computers are and how they work, instead of just _asking_ the people who already knew!

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

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