: We latter day folks probably will never really understand how the Rings worked. My guess is that somehow they focused, augmented or amplified the user's native powers. Sauron had to pour his power into his because he was wasn't interested in merely augmenting his already considerable power, but in somehow linking his Ring to the others and then somehow making them a trap that enslaved the user. That took quite a bit of power, and, thinking about it, he wasn't all that successful: true, he captured the Nazgul with the Nine, but he was unable to break the Dwarves, only heighten their interest in gold, so as to entrap them.

Okay. The Nine worked pretty well. The Seven were problematical. If you have access to someone's computer files, but they only use the computer to play Solitaire, this is not very useful.

And the Elves? Well, he never touched those rings, so establishing the link was such a tricky maneuver that in attempting it he somehow revealed himself to Celebrimbor (I used to think that this revelation was a vision sent from "outside," like Faramir/Boromir's dreams, from Illuvatar, most likely (The Valar seem unable to directly monitor Morgoth or Sauron's moves, I doubt they sent these visions.) Now it occurs that possibly it was a glitch in Sauron's Ring-fishing quest.

Lets just keep pounding this analogy into the dirt. Celebrimbor figured out that somebody had been in his files. Solution? STOP USING THE COMPUTER!

: After the war where Sauron destroyed Eregion but failed to capture the Three Rings (why try to do this: if they were meant as a snare, why "recall" them before they'd done their work?

That's the problem-they weren't doing the job. Worse, Sauron had revealed himself and the feds were on the way. The only solution is to retaliate first. Gandalf pointed out that Sauron did not gain his power by waiting for his enemies to attack him, as would assuredly have happenned. He who strikes the first blow hard enough might not have to strike anymore.

(snip)

Once the One was lost, the Three could be used again. However, the backdoor still existed, only the password was forgotten. Finally, the backdoor was integral to the operating system (kinda like Internet Explorer), and removing it crashed the system.

I know i beat that to death. Sorry. The more I thought about the computer analogy, the better it seemed to fit.