No, there's no remote kill, and the phone home function is optional and for your convenience only. Our ASICs have a crypto mechanism that checks a license file that you must supply to the system. The license file specifies how much mining the system will do, in accordance with whatever license you've purchased. For the C200 units we are taking orders for currently, the license will be unlimited.
That sounds a lot different than:
Mining is controlled via an online control panel hosted by LargeCoin, which allows you to direct mining shares to the pool of your choice and manage your entire LargeCoin cluster in one convenient place
So which is it?
Both - most customers (we imagine) will prefer to control the system through a nice hosted UI. Others will configure their appliances to connect to a pool and contribute mining shares without any interaction with our control panel service. There will be a way to run the appliance completely independently - we hear you, and will make sure this option is available.
locked or unlocked I would want the rig completely outside the control of LargeCoin.
Why not simply have a license file issued and used locally which has encryption key for either share limit or unlimited mining. The whole calling home to a remote server which manages the rigs and "directs" them to a pool of user's choice is a deal killer.
As I've written in various posts, after you receive the appliance, you can either connect it to the Internet, in which case it will self-register and obtain a license automatically when you pay the balance; or, you can leave it disconnected and install the license file manually. I think most customers will take the auto-registration route for convenience. After you have paid us and obtained the full license key, there is no need for the system to contact LargeCoin central again, and you will be able to stop this from happening without having any effect on mining.