At what point does Starfleet decide Data is too risky for service?

[Green Shirt]

Starfleet waited too long on this matter, since Data was destroyed in Nemesis.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Data has demonstrated himself dangerously hackable.

By exactly two people (Dr. Soong in "Brothers" and Lore in "Descent"), both of whom are now dead. Since only they were ever shown hacking Data, and nobody else can presumably do it (since Soong and his creations had knowledge that no one else has), then the danger is passed.

 

[Karzak]

Data has demonstrated himself dangerously hackable.

By exactly two people (Dr. Soong in "Brothers" and Lore in "Descent"), both of whom are now dead. Since only they were ever shown hacking Data, and nobody else can presumably do it (since Soong and his creations had knowledge that no one else has), then the danger is passed.

Plenty of other entities/people/life forms have "hacked," or were able to access/control Data over the course of the series outside of Dr. Soong and Lore:

• The Ux-Mal prisoners in "Power Play."

• The nanites in "Evolution."

• The Edo god in "Justice."

• The D'Arsay archive in "Masks."

• Dr. Ira Graves in "The Schizoid Man."

• The Iconian virus in "Contagion."

• The Satarran memory wipe-weapon in "Conundrum."

• The Enterprise holodeck in "A Fistful of Datas."

• The alien device Bashir brings aboard in "Birthright, Part I"

Plenty of others have proven capable of incapacitating Data as well.

I don't disagree -- the central premise of this thread is somewhat obtuse, given the vulnerabilities demonstrated by other characters, but let's not ignore that Data isn't impervious to it either.

 

[Mojochi]

Besides, to say Soong hijacked or hacked him is pretty silly, as he designed Data with the feature of being compelled to return to him when called. That's not a hack, it's a design

Data has been infected, compromised, or possessed numerous times over the course, just as pretty much all of his crewmates, but to be fair, only 2 individuals have ever hacked into, and controlled Data's programming to do their bidding. That would be Ira Graves, & Lore, & frankly, I would place those two guys as 2 of the top 3 or 4 cyberneticists living at that time, superseded by only Soong & perhaps Data himself. That's got to mean something. Maddox looked like a nimrod in comparison

Given how rare it is for Data's tech to be controlled by anything other than supernatural or special alien traits, it really does balance out with the fact that it was Data's tech alone that was responsible for hacking the Borg collective & preserving the entire existence of Starfleet anyhow. He gets a pass

 

[SoM]

Besides, to say Soong hijacked or hacked him is pretty silly, as he designed Data with the feature of being compelled to return to him when called. That's not a hack, it's a design

If a backdoor exists, then anyone can ultimately find it - there's no such thing as a "good guy"-only vulnerability, designed in or otherwise.

Now, to say that the rest of the crew are also vulnerable to "hacking", citing various episodes, is a fair point. But Soong ABSOLUTELY "hijacked or hacked" Data.

 

[Mojochi]

If a backdoor exists, then anyone can ultimately find it - there's no such thing as a "good guy"-only vulnerability, designed in or otherwise.

Now, to say that the rest of the crew are also vulnerable to "hacking", citing various episodes, is a fair point. But Soong ABSOLUTELY "hijacked or hacked" Data.

That doesn't make sense to me though. If I build a car, & leave the key in a magnetic box under the wheel well, & then one day I use that key to get into it, I didn't break into it. I meant for that key to get used by me. Now if someone else figures out about my little magnet key secret, & use it to take my car, then yeah they weren't meant to use it.

Now you can argue that once Soong had made a sentient being, he had no right to put that kind of override into it, but clearly he saw his androids as something which he may need to recall, so he designed them as such, & did so

Lore is the perfect example of what Hijacking Data looks like. He wasn't supposed to have been able to do that. Whereas Soong didn't hijack Data, he used the recall he installed (unethical though it might be) & he certainly didn't hack him, because it was an intentionally built in feature