{"id":274,"date":"2023-08-05T19:23:22","date_gmt":"2023-08-05T19:23:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.hexkey.co.uk\/lee\/?p=274"},"modified":"2023-08-05T20:11:24","modified_gmt":"2023-08-05T20:11:24","slug":"person-of-interest-s3e17","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hexkey.co.uk\/lee\/log\/2023\/08\/person-of-interest-s3e17\/","title":{"rendered":"Person of Interest S3E17"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Notes for season 3 episode 17, “Root<\/a>“<\/p>\n\n\n\n

0:42 The Machine notes the Samaritan backup as being on LTO-4 \/ 256-bit AES-GCM (even though, as established, the props aren’t LTO).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

03:00 While we imagine Reese’s off-screen activities might involve walking the dog, cleaning his guns, and developing a “tier list” of New York bakeries, it’s clear that Root’s been doing something between a gig-app job and video game speed-run for a while now. Working to avert the deployment of an unconstrained ASI… the opposite of her motivation in the second season.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

03:12 Root recovers a discarded sales receipt with a signature, but presumably it could have been found online by the Machine?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

04:00 NCSA is most famous internationally for the HTTPd web server (a precursor to Apache) and Mosaic web browser (a precursor to Netscape, although not in terms of actual code).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

11:56 Root airdrops an erectile disfunction pill spam image to Finch’s phone. An unsolicited dick-pill pic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

14:55 Finch has determined that the pharma-spam image included a hidden message (likely using least-significant bit steganography) by comparing it to other examples of the image online. But that the message is encrypted… although somehow<\/em> he knows it’s a running key cypher. (Encryption works very much according to the needs of the plot in the PoI universe.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

15:10 The Machine’s cryptic message prompts Finch to realises it’s a book-code referencing de Tocqueville<\/a>. At this point you’d think he’d bulk check anything related to the American Revolution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

18:38 “What kind of janitor needs a background check?” asks the former CIA operative. Uh, is it any janitor with physical access to commercially sensitive, valuable, dangerous, or classified material?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

18:54 The Machine notes the voiceprint source as “MIL-SPRC MITBR”, which I assume is a typo for MBITR – ie the AN\/PRC-148 radio featured in a season one episode. The search engine result I got for MIRBR<\/a> was unhelpful.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

21:27 Root’s FBI agent alias is “Augusta A King” (the married name of Ada Lovelace).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

25:37 The Decima agent is holding a prop that looks like a handheld RF jammer, but usually you’d expect it to have more than one antenna to cover different frequency ranges. So it’s probably a specific-use jammer – for GPS or wifi.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

27:17 It’s reasonable, if not a bit ironic, for Collier to complain about the use of drones for assassination and the imprisonment of people without due process.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

30:09 Presumably Root is requesting that Finch adds a custom RF receiver into a cochlear implant (presumably the external part).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

35:54 Seems like a poor design for a retinal scanner lock if you have to mash your face up against it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

37:51 I guess Decima’s single antenna jammer doesn’t cover the Machine’s frequency. Should’ve sprung for the multi-antenna multi-frequency setup?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

38:00 The prototype NSA computer hangs like a chandelier or stalactite. You actually see this in quantum computers like the IBM Q. The reason, beyond anime aesthetics, is that they often operate inside cooled metal cylinders<\/a>, and it’s apparently easier\/safer to lower the cylinders to access the machinery than it would be to raise it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

39:30 Decima’s anti-forensics efforts amount to just setting fire to their computers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Notes for season 3 episode 17, “Root“ 0:42 The Machine notes the Samaritan backup as being on LTO-4 \/ 256-bit AES-GCM (even though, as established, the props aren’t LTO). 03:00 While we imagine Reese’s off-screen activities might involve walking the dog, cleaning his guns, and developing a “tier list” of New York bakeries, it’s clear […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[7],"class_list":["post-274","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-notes","tag-person-of-interest"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hexkey.co.uk\/lee\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/274","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hexkey.co.uk\/lee\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hexkey.co.uk\/lee\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hexkey.co.uk\/lee\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hexkey.co.uk\/lee\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=274"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.hexkey.co.uk\/lee\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/274\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":276,"href":"https:\/\/www.hexkey.co.uk\/lee\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/274\/revisions\/276"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hexkey.co.uk\/lee\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=274"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hexkey.co.uk\/lee\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=274"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hexkey.co.uk\/lee\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=274"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}