IMHO 1) is where it's at. About scanning vehicles: If I understand MA correctly (which I may not) scanning a vehicle is not an exploit but repeatedly scanning one to gain Human Investigator skills is deemed as one. Yeah, this is one exploit I didn't guess to be one. So 1) could be a tad gray, here and there. I wouldn't mind your 2) if they (MA) would actually fix things they don't want us to do wherever technically possible.
What is the difference between scanning a vehicel with autouse all the day and scanning a crafter autoclicking at terminal all the day.
Its skilling, and it cost PED to gain skills.
How the hell could scanning, that doesn´t make money be an exploit.
Well I have heared that it was possible to scan auctioneer and technican some day (doesn´t work today), and this was considered an exploit. MA reacted and made them not scannable, but why the hell?
Whats the differnece scanning a real player or an NPC, both cost the same PED for scanning and both gives the same amounts of skillgains.
Human investigator skills can be build without any risk, no matter how you do it (scanning people at auctions, terminals aso, scanning vehicles, scanning NPC).
Its different to the other investigator proffessions, where the object you scan may attack you.
In that case scanning trapped mobs, may be considered an exploit, different to scanning human where the target never ever will attack you (expect you scan in a PvP area).
Imho, an exploit is something where you gain an advantage without the risk of losing anything in a way that is not wanted by MA. I can´t see that advantage you got from scanning vehicles or even NPC (what doesn´t work anymore)
Examble:
Border Sweating
Trap Sweating
Trap Hunting
Color boxes bug, without decay (long time ago)
Doing such things can be seen as an exploit, as it gives you an advantage over those who don´t use this bugs.
These mentioned examples have been seen as exploits by MA, and they did something about it or stated offically that it is an exploit and can be punished with a ban.
BTW, the mentioned huntingbot stated in first post is definately a banable exploit and it already happend that bot user got banned, remember Nostrop Doener! Its stated in EULA that using bots (third party software, that directly interacts with EU software) is not allowed.