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by Adrian Kingsley-Hughes, August 7th, 2009; http://blogs.zdnet.com/hardware/?p=5114&tag=nl.e550
The patent application for a "Consumer Abuse Detection System and Method" was uncovered by AppleInsider this week. The idea is a clever one - take a device (such as the iPhone) and build into it a variety of sensors, 
such as liquid sensors, thermal sensors, shock sensors and continuity sensors (this would detect tampering), and have these feeding data into dedicated "abuse detection circuitry" and have the data logged. Now, when you take your dead iPhone back to the store, the corpse is hooked up to a diagnostic device that reads the stored data, and highlights anything that you might have done to void your warranty. If there's any signs of abuse, you can kiss your warranty goodbye …
OK, this seems like a great feature for product vendors because it allows them to duck warranty obligations and thus save money, but I'm an advocate for the consumer, not big business, so I'd be very wary of any mechanism that the vendor packs into a device that determines whether warranty claims are valid or not. In a situation like this, to be honest I'd want someone to be keeping an eye on the watchers. I'd also like to see consumers being able to access what data is being stored on the device. A black box system where some drone behind a counter somewhere can make a pass/fail proclamation about a particular bit of hardware is not only open to abuse (such as pressure to reduce warranty claims) but also puts owners at a disadvantage.
Also, let's be clear here, none of this will be foolproof/tamperproof. Just as with unlocking phones, it's likely that an industry will spring up that will allow those in the know to be able to bend the rules. The honest people will end up losing out the most.
I can see why a company such as Apple wants to weed out warranty claims that have arisen from negligence or wilful acts on the part of the owner, because this can cost a company a lot of money, but I worry about such a system being misused, especially if the system is a closed one. We've already seen Apple go to great lengths to silence people experiencing potentially dangerous battery issues.
Bottom line, mechanisms such as this abuse detection system feel too much like the fox being in charge of the hen house. I don't think that there's a single large company out there that I'd trust to be totally honest with such power.
Adrian is a technology journalist and author who has devoted over a decade to helping users get the most from technology. He also runs a popular blog called The PC Doctor. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations
Right to Reply: Should any industry representatives wish to comment on any posts on Hardware 2.0, I will be happy to publish their reply verbatim on this blog.
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