I wonder how long until this gets hacked, and someone releases a cracked firmware with this idiocy removed. Clearly, the functionality is already there if it can be accessed "3 times".
This is the dark side of the "update culture" --- forcing you to take all the things you don't want along with the bug fixes. Aided by dire security warnings of not updating, it's a perfect way to achieve control over your userbase.
More likely there to be a security breach at Netgear & similar companies within next 2-5years. Of course the registered data would be exposed and downloaded.
I have serious doubts. Having worked with switch ASIC vendors before (Marvell, Broadcom), they require you to sign a mile long NDA before you can even access datasheets.
If you can get the switch vendor to release a GPL archive (which is often a struggle in of itself) I have never seen them release the source code to manage the switch ASIC. That's always built as an out-of-tree module which is not released as part of the GPL archive.
Many switches are not even running Linux, it's quite typical to see eCos, VxWorks, or an RTOS (e.g. ThreadX) on a switch.
tl;dr - even if the switch runs Linux (many don't), it is very unlikely you will have the datasheet and/or reference implementation for managing the switch ASIC
This is the dark side of the "update culture" --- forcing you to take all the things you don't want along with the bug fixes. Aided by dire security warnings of not updating, it's a perfect way to achieve control over your userbase.