Serial numbers intelligence

[Gavin Scott]

Wayne after Ed:
> As to the number sold, you should be able to get a sense of it by collecting serial numbers from those who have them - once you get enough of them (maybe 20 or so) you should get a sense of about where the numbering started and where it ended.

I'm curious to what degree people have used serial number intelligence
gathering and countermeasures in the industry. Like were/are there
market research firms that would go to Fry's and record numbers off of
boxes to try to extrapolate sales for things like printer consumables,
and whether companies like HP ever took measures to try to obfuscate
the potential information content of their product serial numbers.

I always thought this could be a fun business idea.

You could do the same thing with similar data like fast food
restaurant receipt numbers etc. It might be a good model for
crowd-sourced data collection.