Maybe have been asked and answered already but here goes:

How big an area does the machine cover ? Is it just New York or (as mentioned in one of the early eps) does it cover the whole USA.

They have only been receiving numbers of NYers so that points to it just covering New York, but would that mean all any terrorists need do is set up shop in another State and they can enact their jidhady stuff without impunity.

And if it is just NY then wouldn't the machine be missing many-many plots cos it is trying to figure things out with incomplete data, unable to form a complete picture cos parts are happening in non-NY places.

Anyone know ?

The Machine is tied into surveillance across the U.S. (and possibly the world). But since its creator is working out of NY, it just sends NY cases to Finch. What would be the point of sending him a case in Alaska?

^good point, sounds logical, though is it something within the machine that's doing this (a couple(!) lines of code which result in only NY numbers being sent) or does he get every number and only maker-pen the ones found in NY (though methnks that'd be a 'kin long list)....... maybe this is either (1) something they'll deal with in S2 or (2) something they mentioned in S1 but I missed cos I was still all and over a just-happened action scene.

They've shown Finch only getting one number at a time, as the Machine calls him on a pay phone (except the one time it gave him four). I imagine that originally he programmed it to feed him SSNs from the location he was at, since it can track him. Now, of course, it may be deciding for itself...

Quote:

I imagine that originally he programmed it to feed him SSNs from the location he was at, since it can track him

........(thinks about that for a mo)........

and Yup, that ending (which I'm ~13 eps away from reOMGing) was a defn universe-expansion type of thing (whatever THAT means )

You meant to say WITH impunity! One acts WITH impunity.