Notes for season 4 episode 2, “Nautilus“
00:08 “We are being watched…” The season 4 titles take on the red/black on white aesthetics of Samaritan, rather than the white/blue on black design used by the Machine.
01:48 Apparently Finch isn’t the only one capable of hacking into credit card numbers to pull transaction details – unless he’s using police authorisation, of course.
04:28 Following the “in plain sight” theme of this season, a Lost Dog flyer is a clue that leads to a Lat/Long (although Finch says “GPS coordinates”, which is usually expressed as degree-min-sec).
10:17 The disk that Claire has hidden in the book about “subversive soviet theater” is a black Seagate FreeAgent GoFlex. This is the same disk I was personally using when this episode aired. The GoFlex was introduced start the start of USB 3 transition, and the disk itself had a 22pin SATA interface – you would then either plug in an adaptor to give you a USB interface or a faster Firewire interface, which is why it seems to have an oddly tapered end.
15:03 “The game started with a post on an obscure message board.” Clearly this episode is referencing Cicada 3301. It’s not mentioned in the Wikipedia article, but the obscure message board the first message appeared on, was 4chan.
16:08 It’s not often that you see someone wearing Google Glass in a TV show.
17:00 Finch is able to read Braille. I can’t quite make out all the marks ( ⠰⠑⠼ ⠁⠓⠙ ⠰⠞⠓ ⠼ ?? ??? ) so I can’t check if it actually says “184 and 3rd”. Online Braille translators suggest (⠼⠁⠓⠙⠰⠹⠀⠯⠼⠀⠉⠰⠗⠙)
19:05 Is this the first time we see tape applied to a laptop camera – one of the cultural responses to the Snowden Revelations which lasted for years. Up until the pandemic made the use of laptop cameras obligatory for many. There was also a small industry in branded sliding camera covers. I had one promoting Black Mirror.
19:27 The surveillance camera admin interface features a bunch of 5 part IP addresses like 192.7.7.1.15
20:00 Shaw comes off like a MAGA Twitterer expressing anger over the mere existence soy milk. “Go cow or go home.”
21:35 Very briefly you can see the (heavily modified) email headers, where you can see that the anonymous address has passed both SPF and DKIM checks. Finch then attempts to run “tracert Anonymous” – there’s no reason that would work.
21:56 “It simply materialised in the recipient’s inbox” – headers aside, this isn’t necessarily baffling. It implies the sender has access to the IMAP account of the recipient, or admin level access to the mailserver.
24:58 The PMCs apparently have a plan for four people to tail the target with the assumption that the first three might be quickly taken out?
41:20 I know we saw some welding at the start of the episode, but come on. Finch cleaned and refitted an abandoned subway terminal as a part-time hobby alongside his university work?