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 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.
03:12 Root recovers a discarded sales receipt with a signature, but presumably it could have been found online by the Machine?
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).
11:56 Root airdrops an erectile disfunction pill spam image to Finch’s phone. An unsolicited dick-pill pic.
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 he knows it’s a running key cypher. (Encryption works very much according to the needs of the plot in the PoI universe.)
15:10 The Machine’s cryptic message prompts Finch to realises it’s a book-code referencing de Tocqueville. At this point you’d think he’d bulk check anything related to the American Revolution.
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?
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 was unhelpful.
21:27 Root’s FBI agent alias is “Augusta A King” (the married name of Ada Lovelace).
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.
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.
30:09 Presumably Root is requesting that Finch adds a custom RF receiver into a cochlear implant (presumably the external part).
35:54 Seems like a poor design for a retinal scanner lock if you have to mash your face up against it.
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?
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, and it’s apparently easier/safer to lower the cylinders to access the machinery than it would be to raise it.
39:30 Decima’s anti-forensics efforts amount to just setting fire to their computers.