Chloe's Hacking?

[Supsfan]

I am just doing a partial rewatch of the series all(I basically am picking out my favorite episodes) and just noticed that Unsafe was the first time we actually see Chloe hack into something on her computer. I am just curious how many other pre Season 5(when her hacking ability took center stage) examples of Chloe hacking do with have. I basically have watched 41 of the first 77 episodes, which does mean there is about 36 episodes there could be a scene of her potentially hacking.

I don't count pulling something up on a computer that she has as a saved file, or working on a computer in general to be hacking, I mean actually breaking into something like a hacker would(ie password protected files). I should point out although it's not on my rewatch list, I do remember a scene in Delete where Chloe is in amazement of Adam Knights hacking skills(which is rather comical after you see S5+ Chloe behind a computer).

[AgentChaos]

I am just doing a partial rewatch of the series all(I basically am picking out my favorite episodes) and just noticed that Unsafe was the first time we actually see Chloe hack into something on her computer. I am just curious how many other pre Season 5(when her hacking ability took center stage) examples of Chloe hacking do with have. I basically have watched 41 of the first 77 episodes, which does mean there is about 36 episodes there could be a scene of her potentially hacking.

I don't count pulling something up on a computer that she has as a saved file, or working on a computer in general to be hacking, I mean actually breaking into something like a hacker would(ie password protected files). I should point out although it's not on my rewatch list, I do remember a scene in Delete where Chloe is in amazement of Adam Knights hacking skills(which is rather comical after you see S5+ Chloe behind a computer).

I think Unsafe was the first time we got on-screen evidence of Chloe hacking into something.

I also think that after what she saw Adam do with his skills, she started to work on her own hacking skills, but since Chloe becoming a hacker was usually not germane to the plots in the episodes, we didn't see it onscreen. That's why her hacking skills might have seemed to come out of nowhere in Season 5, but her hacking into the Belle Reve files in Unsafe, followed by her hacking into the Smallville Med video files in Onyx, were meant to show us that she had been practicing on the side since Delete.

[jon-el87]

Looking back, I think we as viewers made a bigger deal of her hacking, than there was actually onscreen. Okay, so she accessed Alicia's medical file, then the security cameras at Smallville Medical. Strikes me more as examples of bad cyber security, than Chloe being an amazing hacker. Heck, in the real-world, medical data breaches are quite common. Looking at Wikipedia, over 173 million records was breached between 2008 and 2017. Yet, when Chloe does it, we consider it amazing (you just know that someone at Belle Reve or the Smallville Medical Center had "password" as their password;* heck, with how corrupt Belle Reve was portrayed, she could've just bribed someone for the password).

What else? She hacks Bart's cell phone records (no idea how secure those records are). Creates identities for the Kandorians, only... like we saw in "Rapid" with Coats and Zod in "Crossfire", many of them already had arranged identities for themselves. So, what did she actually do? How much was it her, and how much was it the Kandorians?

Created an identity for Kara. Only, we don't know the specifics. So, I can't comment on it. We just saw some school records (a public high school is hardly Fort Knox, when it comes to cyber security). Assuming that she even did that herself, and didn't get massive amounts of help from Oliver's people.

In "Sleeper", she gets caught and tracked down, while trying to hack the NSA (a place that would have legit cyber security). Because she's good at accessing weak records like schools and hospitals, not government agencies.

* In "Static", the password for Lex's computer was Lana's birthday. A CEO of a billion dollar corporation uses his girlfriend's birthday as his password. In "Sacred" (or some season four episode), the password's "ELEMENTS". One word, all caps. If a guy in Lex's position uses such terrible passwords... Why would we expect better from hospitals, high schools and phone companies? If they have equally bad (or worse) passwords, anyone could access their records. Not to mention, given all of her connections during the early years (cops, doctors, clerks, etc.), maybe she paid some legit hacker to create a type of hacking software for her (she could've created one herself, while infected by Brainiac; explaining away all amazing hacking done after her being infected). Though, I'm inclined to go with the former. A powerful man like Lex Luthor uses terrible passwords, then everyone probably does too.

[jon-el87]

In "Hero", Pete hacks the Daily Planet computers.

In "Hostage", the Red Queen (Martha) hacks Watchtower.

In "Sleeper", Jimmy hacks the Isis Foundation super computer.

Lois probably hacked something, at some point (just can't remember a specific example). However, what's important to note, is that even Martha Kent (who was pushing 50, at that point) can hack a secure facility like Watchtower. In fact, apart from Clark, many of the main characters were shown to be able to hack something. It makes Chloe's skills more bland, as everyone and (literally) their mother can hack computers. Hacking isn't something that Chloe holds monopoly on.

Furthermore, in "Justice", Victor Stone is able to instantly hack a LuthorCorp facility (thanks to Queen Industries upgrapes). In "Doomsday", Jimmy accesses Tess' computer with the aid of a decryption key, supplied to him by... Oliver Queen. When you've looked at those two instances, it seems very likely that Oliver's supplied Chloe with some type of hacking software. Making her "skills", all thanks to an automatic computer program, not her own ability. All she does is turn it on.