A notion...

[g33k]

... Perhaps we need a Paranoid Gary POV as “the man in the chair” with the Paranet ...

 

Oooh! I want this story now! 

Oh yeah, me too!

[vincentric]

Well we know from Alera's origin, that Jim responds to challenges so ...

[Conspiracy Theorist]

You don’t earn the epithet “Paranoid” because you haven’t been keeping tabs electronically on Harry, Marcone, Lara Raith, Goodman Grey (he will after Battle Ground) the Swartalves, all the big hitters in Chicago, and as an oracle and a genius hacker to come up with some unique ways of keeping tabs on them. Harry would be the worst, no cellphone, doesn’t use a credit card, glitches CCTV cameras. So if there is a pattern in his glitch, a signature or fingerprint, Gary would find it and be able to track in real time through a monitoring programme of CCTV cameras (we know he can easily get into those) and other things which Harry would create a disturbance in which are connected to the internet, such as traffic signals, ATM’s etc. Basically Gary likely has the electronic equivalent of Little Chicago, but one Wizards are entirely blind too.

Have to be some time after Battle Ground as all the electronics not magically protected were fried. However internet is back by Christmas.

It would be interesting to see his on-line interaction with fellow on-line Paranet conspiracy theorists as part of this. Those who believe Bigfoot is real, but refuse to believe he wears a tux and glasses as Gary swears. Call the story CYBER PUNKS.

Funnily enough the Swartalves would probably call him “Perfectly Normal Gary”

[g33k]

You don’t earn the epithet “Paranoid” because you haven’t been keeping tabs electronically on Harry, Marcone, Lara Raith, Goodman Grey (he will after Battle Ground) the Swartalves, all the big hitters in Chicago...

Gary is good, but I doubt he's that good.

Lara & Marcone, in particular, will have hired their own top-tier hackers, both for self-protection and to attack enemies.

Goodman Grey's shapeshifting will defeat all the CCTV monitoring, and he undoubtedly uses lots of cash (instead of cards) which reduces his "digital footprint" almost to nil.

All the big faerie powers -- including the svartalves -- have huge amounts of their power (usually the majority of it) in the Nevernever, which is utterly beyond Gary's reach.

Gary probably only learned about the Nevernever when Harry&Elaine founded the Paranet and the supernaturals began some online chatter on the topic.  But the thing about the Paranet is that the mostly-low-level supernaturals just aren't as clued-in as the big players.  Harry himself -- a mostly-trained WC wizard -- only learned of some fundamental things (like Summer&Winter's Lady/Queen/Mother "3 Queens" structure) on-screen, from Bob.

[Conspiracy Theorist]

Gary isn’t just a hacker, he is an oracle, it’s the expression of his minor talent, allowing him to predict the future from the scant information available. That means his talent is magnified by the Information Age and is complimentary to technology rather than antithetical like a wizards.

Yes, Marcone and Lara have their own people, it didn’t stop him spying on Thomas and Justine, covered by Lara’s people so presumably he is also in Marcone’s System . Ironically if he is monitoring practitioners, he may have already caught onto Marcone before he revealed himself to Harry.

The Faerie Courts are in the Never Never, but Molly has a phone, he’s probably in that, same with Fix, so he has probably penetrated that part of both Courts in the mortal world.

Goodman Grey uses his non-descript face way too much, the human eye passes over it, facial recognition doesn’t. His car doesn’t shapeshift. He is a dedicated gamer, that’s one way to get to him. He can and does use e-mail, which means he has a phone capable of being hacked. It depends on how good his assistant  is on whether they can keep Garry out. My bet is he is being monitored by Gary through his gaming, it’s the one thing his assistant is dismissive of, so Grey likely also has a portable internet capable gaming device with apps which have back doors Gary can exploit.

[Ed0517]

Everything we have seen has been filtered through Harry, who can’t use. Butters POV was Day One which didn’t reference it.

Perhaps we need a Paranoid Gary POV as “the man in the chair” with the Paranet. I bet Jim can’t write a good cyber punk story in the Dresdenverse where it’s protagonist doesn’t even leave his chair. Not his style at all.

You could have Gary tracking Harry because of the effect he has on Electronics like CCTV cameras, cell towers etc question does each Wizard have their own “fingerprint” as regards the interference pattern? Unless they go thorn manacles, it would allow even the best screened wizard to be tracked and identified by non-magical means. Perhaps Gary has been keeping tabs on Harry this way for years.

I wonder if Rashid's Cone of Silence spell from the dispensary is proof against  eavesdropping? Or is Harry's castle has a room encircled by water puipes, and a pump just circulating the water running water diffusing magic .... hey, could he put a PC in that room? Run two concentric shells of pipe, you can eel power and ethernet cables thru...

[g33k]

Gary isn’t just a hacker, he is an oracle, it’s the expression of his minor talent, allowing him to predict the future from the scant information available. That means his talent is magnified by the Information Age and is complimentary to technology rather than antithetical like a wizards.

Yes, Marcone and Lara have their own people, it didn’t stop him spying on Thomas and Justine, covered by Lara’s people so presumably he is also in Marcone’s System . Ironically if he is monitoring practitioners, he may have already caught onto Marcone before he revealed himself to Harry.

The Faerie Courts are in the Never Never, but Molly has a phone, he’s probably in that, same with Fix, so he has probably penetrated that part of both Courts in the mortal world ...

I think it likely that Gary has some sort of "oracular" or "ultra-intuitive" ability, but you are describing something WAY more than a "minor talent!"  (Also, I don't recall any in-canon "reveal" of Gary-as-Oracle (though I haven't yet gotten the last few shorts); is there WoJ on this?)

Hacking the Summer Knight , and the Winter Lady?  You do realize that one of the things faeries are really good at is knowing hidden things, right?  If he's stepping on the Faerie Courts' toes this way... then Gary is a major talent, not a minor one!  As a side-note, though:  what exactly do Sir Fix and Lady Molly do with their phones??!?  Dollars to donuts they don't interact with distant members of their respective Faerie Courts.  I  bet that mostly, they do mortal-facing stuff... and not as Faerie representatives.

Goodman Grey uses his non-descript face way too much, the human eye passes over it, facial recognition doesn’t. His car doesn’t shapeshift. He is a dedicated gamer, that’s one way to get to him. He can and does use e-mail, which means he has a phone capable of being hacked. It depends on how good his assistant  is on whether they can keep Garry out. My bet is he is being monitored by Gary through his gaming, it’s the one thing his assistant is dismissive of, so Grey likely also has a portable internet capable gaming device with apps which have back doors Gary can exploit.

Goodman Grey is a shapeshifter.  Facial recognition loses him entirely, each time he shifts.  He can turn into a bird, or a bat, and fly; he can turn into a rat, and climb through drains.

Also, both general cctv-based monitoring, and facial-recognition tech, are well-publicized but highly-imperfect.  I expect Grey knows both the tech & its limits, and has established ways to escape the surveillance.  Tech may be Gary's expertise... but passing unnoticed is Grey's.
 
I am unclear how much Grey might overlap his "gaming" devices with his "professional" devices, but it's not all that hard to create wholly-separate online identities, and keep them on different devices.

Again -- Grey's talents are highly-unusual and highly-specialized; Vadderung suggested there were only a half-dozen or so in the entire world.  Your theory calls for Gary to be able to out-perform Grey in Grey's own area of specialization... if that's so (and maybe it is; but I doubt it) it shows Gary as a major talent.

OTOH, maybe he isn't that careful...  The GG short Monsters is still on my to-track-down-and-read list, so any revelations there aren't yet on my own radar.

(n.b. the Archive is a major oracle, of the sort you describe; Ivy listens to calls on Molly's phone, almost certainly!)

[Conspiracy Theorist]

The point is that Gary is a minor talent, it is his good fortune that he lives in an age where technology magnifies the importance of his talent. On oracle isn’t necessarily a full blown prophet, its more a pattern recognition thing, a poor man’s intellectus, an intellectus can see the entire picture, an oracle can see part of the entire picture when they only have few pieces.

Gary must be a killer at jigsaw puzzle.

[morriswalters]

The GG short Monsters is still on my to-track-down-and-read list, so any revelations there aren't yet on my own radar.

(n.b. the Archive is a major oracle, of the sort you describe; Ivy listens to calls on Molly's phone, almost certainly!)

I have it and you aren't missing much, but relevant to the discussion. Grey concluding some work for Marcone by killing some pedophiles working for Marcone and Marcone voicing his displeasure.

“I suggest you look at this as a glass half-full,” I replied. “You didn’t lose anything but liabilities. Your rivals had already compromised them with the photographs. Probably what they had in mind all along. I just saved you years of headaches and information leaks.”
 
“You are playing with fire, Mr. Grey.”

“Nobody should do that,” I said. “That omelet looks tasty. But grapefruit juice?”

Marcone’s face went blank. His eyes swept up and down the street. “See you around, Baron,” I drawled. I finished my coffee, left the burner phone on the table, rose, and walked away. I was just one more random face among millions. Marcone’s eyes didn’t track me. How could they?

[BrainFireBob]

Gary is good, but I doubt he's that good.

Lara & Marcone, in particular, will have hired their own top-tier hackers, both for self-protection and to attack enemies.

Goodman Grey's shapeshifting will defeat all the CCTV monitoring, and he undoubtedly uses lots of cash (instead of cards) which reduces his "digital footprint" almost to nil.

All the big faerie powers -- including the svartalves -- have huge amounts of their power (usually the majority of it) in the Nevernever, which is utterly beyond Gary's reach.

Gary probably only learned about the Nevernever when Harry&Elaine founded the Paranet and the supernaturals began some online chatter on the topic.  But the thing about the Paranet is that the mostly-low-level supernaturals just aren't as clued-in as the big players.  Harry himself -- a mostly-trained WC wizard -- only learned of some fundamental things (like Summer&Winter's Lady/Queen/Mother "3 Queens" structure) on-screen, from Bob.

It was a signing response, IIRC- someone asked what his talent was to be in the Paranet and Butcher responded that he was an oracle. Big "OH" moment with the looming Apocalypse and his paranoia.

[Conspiracy Theorist]

And we get to see a big slice of Gary in The Law. And yes Bob is on the internet, but nowhere as good as Gary at getting information off of it, suggesting a definite paranormal  ability and yes he is also as technically as talented as as I suspected, able to outwit the cyber experts working for Nameless, scoffing at someone like Will who is averagely above cyber competent.

Bob was insanely interested in his “well organised” skull and given where we know of where little spirits of intellect come from, that should worry Gary. I have long theorised Lea is Bob’s mum, and he might want a little brother or sister.