Exactly what you suggested. It kills all processes associated with the
current virtual console, causing init to spawn a new getty for a fresh,
real login prompt, or some similar action (xdm respawning X,
etc.)
Other Magic SysRQ keys are much more powerful. Like Alt+SysRQ+L, which
kills all processes with signal 9, including init, leaving the computer in
an unusable state. One mistyped SAK sequence and the system goes down.
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