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Some viewers of a new episode of South Park found themselves with "warped smart home lists."
We spend a lot of time talking about South Park's sometimes insightful, sometimes tone deaf social commentary, but Matt Stone and South Park if it wasn't also vulgar, immature, and just a bit obnoxious. That side of the show made itself known with Season 21's premiere, and fans have the warped smart home lists to prove it.
The central plot of "White People Renovating Houses" follows a gang of Confederate flag-waving protesters who are infuriated that automation has negated their jobs. That side of the episode is at times scathing in its critique of enraged blue collar workers and incredibly silly when it came to the white people renovating houses plot. However, the best moments definitely come from the boys asking Amazon Echo's Alexa to do and say increasingly disgusting things. It's a very dumb joke that never gets old because who hasn't asked their smart home device something idiotic?
It's also a joke that's translated to the real world because most of these bits intentionally started with the keywords "Alexa," "Okay Google," and "Hey Siri." Of course real Amazon Echos, Google Homes, and iHomes were happy to respond. Cortana was (not so) mysteriously missing from the AI party.
Previously: News Anchor Sets Off Alexa Devices Around San Diego Ordering Unwanted Dollhouses
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 16 2017, @06:53PM (4 children)
I think it is because those phrases are baked into base firmware that an auxiliary processor can check for without waking up the entire machine.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Derf the on Saturday September 16 2017, @08:01PM
Obviously that is fine so long as the next command it looks for is only the pass code "Warwick here" that opens it for the next %t_user_defined% time period.
(Score: 2) by ledow on Saturday September 16 2017, @10:23PM
Does the power consumption of an Amazon Echo change as it wakes up?
I reckon they're just running all the time, to be honest.
Maybe a mobile device version might sleep but they tend to let you change the wake-up signal.
And a pre-programmed, hard-coded, unchangeable security flaw is the best kind!
(Score: 2) by wonkey_monkey on Saturday September 16 2017, @10:59PM (1 child)
The "entire machine" is always on. The wake phrase is the only phrase the device itself ever listens for.
Subsequent audio is recorded and uploaded elsewhere to do the heavier processing.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk
(Score: 2) by realDonaldTrump on Sunday September 17 2017, @03:54AM
That's what they WANT you to think. It's a wiretapp! 🇺🇸