2.03: Masquerade

[J-Sun]

I had several logical problems with this or I missed something. The person of interest comes off as a total blank and then does a 180 just because Reese didn't rat her out? And later Reese seems to know and do and be interested in all kinds of things a bodyguard shouldn't and this doesn't bother the girl? And a guy announces his candidacy for the presidency of a major country in another country? And something else I can't think of right off hand.

Also, the "boyfriend is a drug financier who sells out his girlfriend" plot isn't especially novel or interesting in a general sense. And hasn't Reese already smashed into somebody with a car, or am I mixing up shows?

Still, I struggled vigorously to overlook those issues and was mostly successful, with the overall effect still being interesting enough, with some humor working, and some aftereffects for Finch and so on. Not so happy with Fusco getting disarmed but I'm generally still really liking Fusco and Carter. I like the dog much better as Finch's than Reese's and that - bad thing to say about an ep - was probably about the best part.

 

[ctg]

Ooooh, another one up. I haven't watched it yet, but thank you for the heads-up J-Sun. I'll comment on it later.

 

[Connavar]

I have been waiting for this ep.

 

[FireDragon-16]

I think this was a pretty good ep.

I think the daughter's biggest problem was that she was so used to everybody being there to do whatever she told them to do, so she just figured she'd be as difficult as possible. When Reese took the blame for them missing the photo shoot, I think that she finally saw that maybe people really did want to keep her safe and she should be a little nicer (granted it was a quick realization but the show is only an hour...).

J-Sun, what kind of things was Reese interested in that he shouldn't, being a bodyguard?

Finch seems to have grown on Bear, he even threw the ball without using a napkin .

 

[ctg]

I had several logical problems with this or I missed something. The person of interest comes off as a total blank and then does a 180 just because Reese didn't rat her out?

Well it went down on me very well and to me it was completely plausible that such a smart person, who can speak SIX languages can make one-eighty, when one presents facts and an opportunity. It's just how the life is. People change all of the time. But I understand if you've qualms with it as it could have been easily sloppy writing.

And later Reese seems to know and do and be interested in all kinds of things a bodyguard shouldn't and this doesn't bother the girl?

What can I say, when the same thing bothered me but not so much that I would have stopped watching the series.

And a guy announces his candidacy for the presidency of a major country in another country? And something else I can't think of right off hand.

You mean the car run at the end of the season? Well, again, it's not the first time when they do speedy runs in the New York.



I liked the episode and I also liked that it was Reese, who presented the number this time and not Finch. So the AI must trust him explicitly or then it would have gone back to serving the Administrator. But there lies the problem, is it free or is it a prisoner?

PS. I also love the dog.

 

[J-Sun]

J-Sun, what kind of things was Reese interested in that he shouldn't, being a bodyguard?

I'm thinking mainly of the scene in the... I think it was a kitchen... where Reese was basically interrogating her like a cop - asking who she was with at the drug dealer's place, who she saw, etc. Maybe it could be argued that he needed to know these things to better fulfill his job of protecting her but it seemed clear to me that he knew too much in order to even know which questions to ask and the angle he took on them showed he was interested in a bigger picture than a bodyguard would likely have been.

Finch seems to have grown on Bear, he even threw the ball without using a napkin .

Yep. I loved it when he used the napkin - kleenex? - first because it seemed so Finch and then when he'd relaxed enough not to. And sliding the bed closer to his desk. And something about the way he hit the word "treat" (or "treats"?) when he looked at the dog and said, "I suppose you'll want a treat?"

Well it went down on me very well and to me it was completely plausible that such a smart person, who can speak SIX languages can make one-eighty, when one presents facts and an opportunity. It's just how the life is. People change all of the time. But I understand if you've qualms with it as it could have been easily sloppy writing.

Yeah, it definitely wasn't that she didn't seem smart enough to adapt - more that she seemed like the kind of person who would just have thought her, uh, mojo was working on Reese and would have continued to try to take advantage of him, rather than thinking "Hey, this guy may be on my side" and suddenly becoming nice. But that's possibly just me or the way the actress played it or just too strong of a first impression - I dunno.

You mean the car run at the end of the season? Well, again, it's not the first time when they do speedy runs in the New York.

Not sure. My memory is pretty random and it's vague in this case. It just seemed real familiar.

I also liked that it was Reese, who presented the number this time and not Finch. So the AI must trust him explicitly or then it would have gone back to serving the Administrator. But there lies the problem, is it free or is it a prisoner?

That's a good point. While there was a certain equality to Finch's and Reese's separate skill sets, there was definitely a lack of redundancy. While Finch still can't fight and Reese still isn't a zillionaire hacker, that does mark a continuation of the significant change of Reese having direct access to the AI. As far as it being free or a prisoner, I don't know - it may be that the terms aren't entirely applicable, in the sense that a dolphin isn't a "prisoner" of the ocean or "free" from it. It's just its state of being. Or, yeah, the AI may be like the prisoner with the ultimate knowledge, being coerced to give it up and see it deployed for ends it judges negative. That's one of the confusing areas: it's working for at least two masters in that its doing the job it was designed for, which is either for the people it was designed for or for very bad people who have or are taking it over (so perhaps at least three masters), and doing the job Finch backdoored into it. And another odd thing is that, while we see Finch as the "good guy", he would reasonably be seen as not delivering the product he promised to provide when he "corrupted" it. Does any of that sound right or wrong? It's quite likely I've missed pieces, both in what I've seen this year and, naturally, in what I missed in season 1.

Let's hope this government/black ops/Finch thing doesn't have it go all HAL and then Skynet on us.

 

[ctg]

I've been thinking Reese's girlfriend, the ex-spy one, and there's something in her that bugs me. Part of me thinks she's in bed with Root, while the other part of me thinks that she's the third party in this triangle and she's aiming the destroy the machine. After all if it's the latter part that driving her forward, I can only say that she's finishing the mission. But why she would send Mister Snow in the morgue to check a dead body?

 

[J-Sun]

I've been thinking Reese's girlfriend, the ex-spy one, and there's something in her that bugs me. Part of me thinks she's in bed with Root, while the other part of me thinks that she's the third party in this triangle and she's aiming the destroy the machine. After all if it's the latter part that driving her forward, I can only say that she's finishing the mission. But why she would send Mister Snow in the morgue to check a dead body?

I'm not sure what her deal is. As far as checking on the body, that was the one with the post-mortem cut on the arm, right? I think there was some subcutaneous device that carried information that Stanton (Reese's ex-CIA) wanted. If I'm remembering right, Carter was checking on it and saw Snow leaving, right? So I guess, whatever it was, Stanton got it via Snow.

 

[ctg]

That thing impeded in the shoulder was the RFID device the unnamed geezer was checking in his car, while he talked to his NSA buddy. I'm pretty sure that's what it was, but the important question is why?

 

[Lenny]

I'm surprised it took so long for this thread to touch upon Reese's black ops friend, and her imprisonment of Agent Snow!

The story now has, what, four separate parties fighting for control of the Machine: Finch and Reese, the back door users; the government trying hard to protect it; the nefarious Root, with almost pure ambitions to set the Machine free*; and Stanton, who has taken Agent Snow hostage, but whose intentions are as of yet unknown.

We've also got the crooked cop who took the RFID chip, but it's unclear who he is working for - is he trying to help the government keep the Machine hidden, or is he working for an as-yet invisible fifth group?

RFID chips, btw, can carry small amounts of data... which you can probably already guess. It could be something as simple as a device to automatically unlock her front door, or it could hold the key to a database/set of records pertaining to the Machine - what better security than to hide it in your body?



*I thought I might make a comment on the Machine being in the wild. So currently it's twiddling its thumbs on a massive server farm somewhere in the States (Washington D.C., maybe? Some undisclosed location in New York? Bet it's below the Statue of Liberty! ). This server farm will need immense amounts of power to keep it running, and cooled, and all that jazz. However, the Machine itself, being just code, can presumably run on anything.

My guess is that the Machine is a distributed system of some sort. Spread its individual components around as much as you like, but as long as they can access a connection and open up communication to the other parts, the Machine will function. I see no reason why it can't go all botnet on the home computers of the millions of people in America (surely that is a better way to spy, too?), and still be able to function perfectly (if not better). Whaddya think - Person of Interest: Miami?

 

[ctg]

Oh no. Not a spin-off series. PoI isn't CSI ffs. The whole premise is too difficult for it, but yeah, if they could maybe they would make satellite offices around the states. But then again, who says that The Machine cannot spy other countries?

Lenny, how much data can you fit in a RFID chip?

 

[Lenny]

Currently, nothing more than a handful of bytes, I think.

For example, an Electronic Product Code (EPC), which is one of the more common types of data stored on an RFID chip, is a 96-bit string of data (twelve bytes). In those 96-bits, 36 are used to identify the protocol version and the organisation responsible for managing the data, whilst the rest identifies the product class (24 bits) and gives it a unique serial number (36 bits).

36 bits can represent positive and negative numbers to an accuracy of ten decimal places, or six alphanumeric characters in six-bit encoding (which gives the possibility of 64 distinct characters).

So it's not much, but it's enough. If the full 96 bits are used completely for data (without the headers), then a 16-bit password (in six-bit encoding) could be stored - it's entirely possible that a database could be encoded with a 16-bit password, which would take some time to crack.

I'll dig out my old cryptography notes and see if I can work it out, but first thoughts are that it could be something in the order of centuries (64 different characters for each bit, which can be repeated, so 16^64 different combinations of characters).