Root (Person Of Interest)

“ One day, I realized all the dumb, selfish things people do... it's not our fault. No one designed us. We're just an accident, Harold. We're just bad code. But the thing you built... It's perfect. Rational. Beautiful. By design. ”

— Root

Root (née Samantha Groves) is a highly intelligent computer hacker and a former contract killer known by her hacker name "Root". She has a special relationship with The Machine and is the only one to be in frequent and direct contact, acting as The Machine's 'Analog Interface'. When the government begins to doubt The Machine's information, Root takes on both the relevant numbers and the task of bringing Samaritan down. It is strongly implied that she is gay.

Skills and Talents :

1. Root's early mastery of the computer game "The Oregon Trail" shows that she is able to manage tasks that involve the balancing, collection, and expenditure of resources. Hunting is also a very important component of the game. Failure in a hunt can lead to starvation while overhunting might lead to a lack of resources later in the game. Additionally, potential hazards such as weather and disease must be addressed and no matter how well one has played the game, it can prove fatal. Furthermore, the game's scoring system was designed to give greater rewards to those who started the game with fewer resources.
2. Root has shown herself to be a skilled marksman, having taken out six Russian hit squad members with two handguns (“The Devil's Share”), as well as taking out two members of Vigilance with one burst of a machine pistol (“Mors Praematura”). Another example is her taking out several Decima operatives to gain access to a building as seen in “Root Path (/)”.
3. Root has shown herself to have a high tolerance for pain in “Aletheia”, taking nearly all of Control's syringes and enduring a stapedectomy without anesthesia. While being tortured she was also able to pickpocket Control for her knife and escape her bonds.
4. Root blends into roles masterfully having been Special Counsel's secretary and collecting information from him without suspicion for months, impersonating Veronica Sinclair (Michael Cole's CIA contact), assuming the identity of a psychotherapist, and also several times as the same FBI agent.
5. Being an accomplished hacker, Root is quite famous in the hacker community, as seen in “Mors Praematura”, when Jason Greenfield recognizes her work.
6. Root also appears to be an expert in countersurveillance because when Finch tried to follow her, he lost her at a corner. (“Blunt”)

Notes

1. Root was able to temporarily infiltrate Finch's private network when he attempted to do the same to her via what appeared to be a vulnerability in her system. While Finch and Reese's operations were not completely compromised, the Library had to be temporarily abandoned and Finch had to rebuild his entire network from scratch. It is unknown how much information Root was able to extract about the Machine while connected to Finch's network, although it seems to have been enough for the Machine to assign her a yellow box, signifying at least some knowledge of the Machine.
2. Control deafened her in the right ear by performing a stapedectomy without anesthesia during a brutal interrogation session. (“Aletheia”) But thanks to a cochlear implant, she can communicate with the Machine through infrasound. (“Root Path (/)”)
3. Root's Object ID from the final scene (prediction) in “Liberty” is: "001.548.25.MPPS".
4. Root's Object ID (from the Machine) is 651.025.68.HSHW. (“Lady Killer”)
5. Root’s grave is marked with 050313 ("Synecdoche"). "Zero Day" aired on 05/02/2013. At midnight on that episode, the phone rang and Root answered. Her grave marker is the first day she communicated with the Machine.

Trivia :

1. Root uses a Samsung NP300V4A notebook computer, a Google Samsung Nexus S smartphone, and arms herself with a Heizer Defense DoubleTap 9mm pistol.
2. Her name comes from the superuser account "root" on Unix and Unix-like systems. Superuser accounts are used for system administration and have **** clearance and power, like the ability to arbitrarily modify files. Windows has a similar account called Administrator or 'Admin' for short, but it is disabled by default to prevent accidental destruction of one's own computer or corruption of the operating system. Windows also allows the creation of other administrator accounts that have the same level of privileges as the Administrator account. A rootkit is a type of malware which gives an intruder undetected total access to an affected computer.
3. 'Admin' is of course how Harold Finch and John Greer are known by The Machine and Samaritan respectively.
4. Several names associated with the character might have some type of connection to real persons, those being:
5. Root's Caroline Turing alias in Firewall may be an homage to Alan Turing, an early theorist on the subject of artificial intelligence and developer of the Turing Machine, an early prototype of the computing machine, invented in 1936.
6. Root's real name, Samantha Groves, might be a reference to Andrew S. Grove, former CEO of Intel, who wrote the book "Only the Paranoid Survive". The title was mentioned by Finch in “Wolf and Cub” after Root hacked into the Library.
7. In Bad Code, Root uses a credit card with the surname Von Neumann to buy a copy of Flowers for Algernon, almost certainly a reference to computing pioneerJohn von Neumann. She uses another credit card in the name of Kelly Dyson to buy gas in Maryland, which is probably a reference to mathematician and physicist Freeman Dyson..
8. Root's FBI alias, Augusta A. King, may be an homage to Ada Lovelace, an English mathematician, and writer chiefly known for her work on Charles Babbage's early mechanical general-purpose computer, the Analytical Engine.
9. In the simulation where the Machine was not created, Root was working for Greer and Samaritan. She was tasked to take down several government members.
10. The some of the firearms used by root are Glock 17, Heckler & Koch USP Compact, Smith & Wesson Bodyguard 380, Walther P99(“Lady Killer”), SIG-Sauer P229R (“Prophets”), Glock 19(“Wingman”), Colt Mustang Plus II (“Prophets”), suppressed USP Compact(“Q&A”), Smith & Wesson M&P Shield(“Prophets”),Smith & Wesson 3914(“Prophets”).
11. The signature move of Root is the use of Dual Glock 26 (“Aletheia”) and sometimes a Heckler & Koch USP Compact with an SW 380 (“The Devil's Share”).

Victims :

1. Trent Russell: orchestrated events so he would be murdered in **** for the **** of Hanna Frey (“Bad Code”)
2. Sarah Lind: Shot by Root on orders by an anonymous competitor
3. Alex Rice: Shot by Root on orders by an anonymous competitor
4. Cyrus Wells: Injured in shooting where his colleagues were killed
5. Five unnamed bankers: Injured in a shooting where their colleagues were killed
6. Michael Delancey: shot once in the chest by her partner, Gage, on her orders (“Root Cause”)
7. Scott Powell: attempted to have killed and framed for ****; failed (“Root Cause”)
8. Pete Matheson: shot once in the head and staged to look like a suicide (“Root Cause”)
9. Owen Reynolds: shot once in the head (“The Contingency”)
10. Alicia Corwin: shot once in the head (“Firewall”)
11. Harold Finch: **** and held captive at gunpoint; eventually rescued (“Firewall”) (“The Contingency”) (“Bad Code”)
12. Julie Davenport: **** (“The Contingency”)
13. Denton Weeks: shot twice in the chest (“Bad Code”)
14. Unnamed guard: attempted to shoot; failed due to intervention by Finch. (“Bad Code”)
15. Veronica Sinclair: held captive; tortured (“Relevance”)
16. Sameen Shaw: held captive and attempted to ****; rescued (“Relevance”) tasered and released to aid her (“Razgovor”) (“Mors Praematura”)
17. Special Counsel: tortured (“Zero Day”)
18. Three unnamed Decima assassins: shot (“God Mode”)
19. Two unnamed ISA operatives: shot (“God Mode”)
20. Everyone at Stoneridge Hospital except Ronald Carmichael: Put to sleep by through desflurane in the ventilation system (“Lady Killer”)
21. Ronald Carmichael - Punched in the carotid artery briefly knocking him out. (“Lady Killer”)
22. Hersh: Shot in the shoulder in self-defense but spared on orders of The Machine (“Lady Killer”)
23. Agent Dearborn - tasered (“Mors Praematura”)
24. Six unnamed Russian hit squad members: shot; wounded only (“The Devil's Share”)
25. Control: Attacked with a knife she had hidden in her pocket in self-defense, Tortured to find Shaw, later escaped (“Aletheia”)
26. Martine Rousseau: neck snapped (“Asylum”)
27. Multiple unnamed Decima Technologies operatives
28. Multiple unnamed Samaritan operatives.

Where is Root when she becomes naked and how does it happen?