“Abuse” implies intent. A bug occurring without said intent most certainly is not “abuse” in the common definition of that word.
And sure, they’ll have to fix it, but it’s still a glaring issue that should have never happened in the first place. A smart meter should very much be tolerant to this form of “abuse”.
As other commenters have said, controls for such a thing should most certainly have been put in place by the smart meter manufacturer. This isn’t something they couldn’t possibly protect against like your sledgehammer example. This is fully within their control, they just chose not to protect against it.
Yes because it's not built to be activated in that manner. Especially for high power/high voltage. This is not a mechanical keyboard switch.
> What if the electric operator’s software malfunctions and causes rapid power cycles to customers’ meters?
Then this is on the power company to fix it and fix the downstream failures this might cause. (Same as power outages that cause damages)
> it certainly wouldn’t be considered “abuse” then.
Abuse: Misuse; improper use; perversion.
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/abuse#English