Apparently she's right. The thing won't work -period- if it isn't live, because AEBN has done multi-level authentication, and it constantly phones home.

http://www.realtouchforum.org/showthread.php?tid=133

That's a real shame on more than one level.

For one, there are lots of situations where one might want to use the realtouch when there's no net connectivity. For another, the idea that you are paying $200, which is a lot for a sex toy, to be locked into only buying content from AEBN, and constantly having to pay AEBN on a recurring basis in order to use your toy that you've paid $200 for also kinda sucks. It's good for AEBN and affiliates, but not so good for customers. For a third, if for some reason AEBN decides the product isn't profitable and kills the authentication server, you're stuck with a $200 doorstop.

It does look like a hardware hack would be fairly trivial so my guess is somebody will come up with an aftermarket product pretty quickly that works with the physical interface. I'm all for AEBN making money on its product, and encouraging customers to stick around by providing a fantastic product at a competitive price... but not so much about coercing customers, after they've spent that kind of money, to HAVE to continue spending money to continue to use the product.