samaritan is the machine in person of interest.
samaritan is the machine in person of interest.
what is the machine in person of interest?
samaritan
john reese, a former special forces soldier and cia operative, is burnt out and presumed dead, living as a vagrant in new york city. he is approached by harold finch, a reclusive billionaire software genius who built a computer system for the u.s. government after september 11, 2001 which monitors all electronic communications and surveillance video feeds, in order to predict future terrorist activities. the computer – known as "the machine" – also predicts other lethal crimes as well, but being irrelevant to national security these were deleted daily. after the death of his partner, finch decides to act covertly on the non-terrorism predictions, and hires reese to conduct surveillance and intervene in these cases. to prevent abuse of its capabilities, finch had programmed the machine to only provide an identity of a person predicted to be involved in an imminent lethal crime, in the form of a social security number, but no details of the crime or whether the person of interest is a perpetrator or victim. finch and reese (and later others) then attempt to understand the case and stop the crime from occurring.
person of interest (tv series)
bullet::::- "person of interest", a cbs tv series that aired from september 2011 to june 2016 that depicts a machine which spies on each citizen of the united states. the machine makes extensive use of surveillance cameras, telephone conversations, internet usage, public records, satellite-driven technology and virtually any mean of physical/digital communication. it does so automatically, without any human interventions (only seven people in the world are aware of its existence). the machine has the purpose of preventing terrorist attacks, but it sees crimes involving ordinary citizens. it provides the authorities with the ssn of the person of interest, which is either a target or a perpetrator. the nsa has been trying to access the machine but the software is so well encrypted that no operating system can crack it. harold finch is convinced that the government would abuse the machine if they can access it, and he vows to make sure that no one else gets hold of the machine. in one episode, an employee of the nsa discovered the existence of the machine and a black ops unit is ordered to kill him.
mass surveillance in popular culture