Using this function you can prevent a vulnerable to Local and Remote File Inclusion attacks.
You'll see it in an example where I load and validate the following string:
<!DOCTYPE scan [<!ENTITY test SYSTEM "php://filter/read=convert.base64-encode/resource=/etc/passwd">]>
<scan>&test;</scan>
One way to prevent that the file in given back is to set this value to 0.
Please take a closer look at the release of symfony 2.0.11