South Park's Season Premier Sets Off Everyone's Amazon Echo (maxim.com)

SonicSpike writes: It's hard to believe that Trey Parker and Matt Stone didn't know exactly what they were doing with Wednesday night's season premiere of South Park. This episode marked the beginning of the show's 21st season and as usual, South Park took on current issues like tiki torch-wielding white supremacists and... home digital assistants. The latter meant lots of gags in which Cartman and other characters addressed Amazon Echo's Alexa and Google Home as well. And that ended up being a problem for viewers who own those devices. (Editor's note: example 1, 2) South Park writers absolutely knew their lines would do this and probably had a hilarious time coming up with funny commands for the home assistants.

Comments

Genius

[Anonymous Coward]

Who actually uses these invasive pieces of technological garbage?

Re:Genius

[OffTheLip]

Southpark fans

Re:Genius

[JohnFen]

The people South Park is ridiculing, of course.

Re:Genius

[xantonin]

I have one which is very useful in the garage for playing music and other commands. I can pause the music or skip tracks without having to touch anything. When your hands are covered in oil and grease it is very helpful.

The same in the kitchen if I'm cooking and my hands are covered in flour or grease again (I swear it's not the same grease) - it's useful to ask things like "how many teaspoons make a tablespoon" without having to take out my phone. I can even set a timer for different things I am cooking.

The speaker is also nice because it plays downwards to a cone which radiates the sound equally everywhere. This is nice in the garage since I don't have to "direct" speakers to where I am.

But the thing I use it for the most is when I crawl in bed and have to turn out the light, or I decide I want the fan on, I just ask Alexa to turn it on or off. In fact, I have it interface to an API with my sleep tracking app which does that for me when I activate it for sleep time.

Sure, you don't need any of this, but for the price ($50), it's already paid for itself compared to the cost of buying some of these devices separately. I don't see how any of this makes me an idiot.

Re: Genius

[Anonymous Coward]

See this is the real application for these devices. Mechanics, cooks, people with mobility issues, seniors, etc.

However, they are never sold as such. They've been made as an alternative to thinking, and that is not good in the long run since it reduces our collective memory and deduction skills.

Re:Genius

[Anonymous Coward]

That would be because you have an always-on microphone in your *bedroom*.

Re:Genius

[0100010001010011]

> a continuous listening device in my home

And I've assumed there's been one there since the 90s.

> beyond that is just invasive.

Unless you're off grid you should realize you're being tracked, constantly. Power bill, credit cards, etc. But if you think not getting an Echo saves you somehow, It'd be nice to be that naive.

Re:Genius

[apoc.famine]

Are you a marketing exec for Amazon? Because every single thing about this sounds like the most contrived bullshit to justify sticking a spying device in every room in your house.
 
If you're in the garage covered in grease, fucking focus on what you're doing and stop dicking with the radio. For the better part of a century there was a radio turned to a radio station and it made noises while people were covered in grease. That hasn't changed. If what's on the radio is more important than the reason you're covered in grease, go wash your hands, and sit down and listen to the radio.
 
Three. The answer is three. It's not really hard to remember. And why the hell would you need to know that anyway? If you don't have the correct measuring tools, buy them. If you're modifying the recipe, do that ahead of time, not while you're fucking cooking already. That's a recipe for disaster.
 
Holy shit. A cone of sound? You need directional speakers when you're working on the car? WTF?
 
And in your bedroom. You can't turn off the lights before bed? You can't decide if you want the fan on or off? It's too hard to haul your ass out of bed for 4 seconds to adjust either?
 
I'm sorry, but as the GP said, I can't see how anyone can use these flimsy justifications to make themselves comfortable with placing listening devices in all the rooms of their house. You're actually telling me that when you're having sex or a wank in bed, you're fine with Amazon listening to that because it turns out the light for you and turns off the fan when you get cold?
 
Idiot.

Re:Genius

[hackwrench]

What's your real argument against being spied on? Personally I like the idea of people always listening so they can do stuff for me, but then I'm not paranoid.

Re:Genius

[DogDude]

but for the price ($50)

Oh, that's cute. You really think that's the price? You didn't take into account that you've also given up every scrap of privacy you have, too. Is that worth $0 to you? You don't mind that it's entirely likely (and legal) that somebody somewhere is listening to you and your SO banging? That's worth the horrible inconvenience of pushing a light switch with your finger?

Re: Genius

[xevioso]

Well, I'm sure that's an example; the poster probably knows that. But if you are multiplying a recipe by 3.5 and something calls for 1/3 table spoon of cinnamon, it helps to have something handy to do that math other than your brain.

Re:Genius

[nospam007]

"Right- because washing your hands is SOOOO hard. "

Indeed, it's hard I'm a surgeon and it's nice during an operation to ask: 'Alexa which of these bloody blobs is the heart again'.

Re:Genius

[hey!]

You know, if you could say, "it feels cool to use," I'd be OK with that. It's the downsides.

I'm not even talking about the hacking concerns. The reason companies are so hot to sell these things is that they view them as consumer behavior tracking and modification devices.

Re: Genius

[hey!]

I take your point, but if your recipe called for 1/3 of a tablespoon of cinnamon, I'd call that a dodgy recipe.

Re:Genius

[CanHasDIY]

You didn't pay attention to a god-damned thing Ed Snowden told us, did you?

A certain amount of paranoia is healthy - helps keep you from being an unsuspecting victim.

Re:Genius

[lexman098]

If you're in the garage covered in grease, fucking focus on what you're doing and stop dicking with the radio. For the better part of a century there was a radio turned to a radio station and it made noises while people were covered in grease. That hasn't changed. If what's on the radio is more important than the reason you're covered in grease, go wash your hands, and sit down and listen to the radio.

So people aren't allowed to stream music and work on their car now? FM radio sucks, and sometimes you want to move to the next track. Who the fuck sits down to just listen to the radio? This isn't 1950.

Three. The answer is three. It's not really hard to remember. And why the hell would you need to know that anyway? If you don't have the correct measuring tools, buy them. If you're modifying the recipe, do that ahead of time, not while you're fucking cooking already. That's a recipe for disaster.

Yeah it wouldn't be hard to remember that one conversion. There's lots of conversions though, and that was probably just an example. Also, maybe not everyone is a super efficient expert cook. Some people have fun trying to wing it.

Holy shit. A cone of sound? You need directional speakers when you're working on the car? WTF?

He specifically said he did *not* want directional speakers so the sound doesn't change when he walks around the garage. I didn't take that as an end-of-the-world kind of thing either, just a nice perk.

And in your bedroom. You can't turn off the lights before bed? You can't decide if you want the fan on or off? It's too hard to haul your ass out of bed for 4 seconds to adjust either?

The lights thing is a bit of stretch, but maybe he wasn't too hot when he went to bed and it got hotter later? Of course he *could* get out of bed half asleep, but no one *wants* to do that.

Go take your meds.

Re:Genius

[TheDayOfMe]

Interestingly, the number of teaspoons to tablespoons is different in in different countries and era of the cookbook.
The standard Australian tablespoon is 20ml, 4 teaspoons, but that we get mostly chinese made stuff now tablespoons are now mostly 15ml. The standard tablespoon in India used by 25ml.
Just a sample: Beware of the Tablespoon

Re: Genius

[PopeRatzo]

Frankly, as someone who fucked in public several times

You shouldn't have any problem, as long as you don't name the sheep, "Alexa".

Re:Genius

[Killall -9 Bash]

You've totally convinced me. Having a SSN and credit score is the same level of tracking as a constantly on web connected microphone in my home.

Re:Genius

[apoc.famine]

No matter what you think about my above comment, I hope you can appreciate the vast quantity of mods I've gotten on it. At the present time:
 
Insightful: 8
Troll: 3
Flamebait: 2
Overrated: 2
Funny: 1
And 1 Insightful removed due to posting after modding. I've never had anything get this number of mods, so I'm going to call this insightful, trolling flamebait a success, and put it on my resume.

Proposed New South Park Character

[Anonymous Coward]

They should introduce a new character named Alexa, a young girl who fights for small businesses. Then Cartman can ask her for fishsticks and NAMBLA paraphernalia.

No, it didn't

[acoustix]

I have my Echo right next to my TV and it didn't activate a singe time during South Park. However, every damn Amazon commercial seems to activate my Echo.

Re:No, it didn't

[bluefoxlucid]

You need the Silver version. It responds to anything remotely-similar to "Alexa."

"Alessa, turn up the thermostat." "Alena, what time is it?" "Aleppo, where did I leave my cat?"

Re:No, it didn't

[Krishnoid]

A few very simple things to ask it:

• play music you purchased via your Amazon account
• the current time
• set timers/alarms
• general-information questions that wikipedia would have the answer to
• current weather/traffic in your area (?)

Not that impressive, but you can think of it as a $50 voice-controlled alarm clock/timer/stereo which may add new features in the future. I consider it an inexpensive one-time purchase that buys me continuous (for now) access to something of a potluck of Amazon's continuously updated cloud services.

Re:No, it didn't

[Dale512]

I have two young children (6 & 3). I love the simple timer setting that I can do anywhere from our first floor. We set timers to remind us on laundry flips/folds, play timers before chores/bed/etc (and other things). The girls love being able to "call" the grandparents and talk to them. They also play a variety of kids stations on Amazon and Pandora while they play/dance/etc. I absolutely love the shopping list feature. All the little things that where not worth stopping to add to an actual list are now added and remembered. I also set reminder alarms to remind me to bring things or of certain events (remember to bring personal laptop today so I can take it to non-work meeting). We also do all the silly things you'd expect as well, but timers, shopping list, and music are the big uses. Sure I could in theory hack/build something similar given time but time is at a premium at this stage in life. I'm sure the tracking/data mining sucks but with what Amazon/Google already has on me, this is a minor addition.

Re:No, it didn't

[Anonymous Coward]

That's why I don't have an Alexa. Hearing my wife call out "Alexa, play the Gypsy Kings" and then the Gypsy Kings don't start playing makes it all worth it.

Re:No, it didn't

[nospam007]

" by E-Rock ( 84950 ) ... My wife hates technology, so that she can be in the kitchen and call out "Alexa, play the Gypsy Kings" and the Gypsy Kings starts playing makes it worth it."

I just asked Alexa and she said, your low UID and your handle indicates that you're one of the Gypsy Kings.

Re:No, it didn't

[vux984]

Not that impressive, but you can think of it as a $50 voice-controlled alarm clock/timer/stereo

/always on microphone hooked up to the internet that you have no real control over.

And *that* is why it is an idiotic device. I can't imagine a how anyone thinks 'voice controlled alarm clock' is worth installing a 'microphone connected to amazon' into your room.

Re:I'm pretty sure that would be considered....

[14erCleaner]

Alexa, say "mark has no sense of humor".

No sympathy

[DarkOx]

Sorry if you are stupid enough to allow some company to basically put a hot-mic in your home, well I don't feel sorry about any problems you encounter as a result of that.

Re: No sympathy

[unrtst]

I'm not trying to change your mind, nor that of the GP, but there is *some* security built in.

For starters, it's not a simple hot mic. The audio is only sent anywhere if the keyword is first heard. It does audio recognition only of the keyword(s) locally, and the rest of it is done remotely if that keyword gets picked up. That said, I'd be surprised if a software update or bug couldn't cause it to stream all data, but it's not doing so all day long.

For certain actions (ex. purchases done through it), it can be setup to require an additional pin code, or those actions can be disabled altogether. This limits the potential impact of someone saying stuff to it. They can mess up your shopping list, play music, have it answer dumb questions, etc, but they can't (easily) have it make purchases.

They also have different models of them. For example, if you wanted one that isn't always listening, but you wanted the rest of the features, you could get the "Amazon Tap", which requires you to tap a button before it'll listen. I'm not well versed in the other providers (google home, etc), but amazon has:

* echo : has 7 mics that use beam-forming stuff, and a nice speaker.
* echo dot : just that nice mic array, no speaker. You provide your own speaker, otherwise it's basically the same as the echo.
* tap : it's basically just the speaker part of the echo, and you can tap it to speak to one mic. It's also portable (has battery) and works as a bluetooth speaker (as does the echo).
* echo show : 8 mics, speaker, camera, and a screen so it can show you stuff too, and do video calls.
* echo look : (this one seems weird IMO) mics, camera, led lighting (for camera), speaker, and a mic&camera off button (kinda like the show without a screen).
* alexa voice remote : This can connect to the echo or echo dot. There's a mic in the remote, and some buttons. IMO, it'd be nice if this worked with the tap, so you wouldn't have to stand next to it. It provides a way to have a hardware button control a mic though, so this could provide added security if your echo dot was shielded from external audio.

Some day, voice recognition stuff might provide some more security to the echo/echo dot/echo show/etc, but I don't think that would really change anybodies mind... recording someone elses voice is pretty easy. It would prevent a TV show from triggering every device out there though. So, if you don't want the risk, there are other options... but you probably just don't like any of them.

I just thought people might want to know that they've really covered just about every combo of hardware features that one of these could have.

Re:No sympathy

[chispito]

Sorry if you are stupid enough to allow some company to basically put a hot-mic in your home, well I don't feel sorry about any problems you encounter as a result of that.

Why do you not extend that same level of distrust to the phone in your pocket? It also has a camera, GPS, and contains your browsing history.

Re: No sympathy

[nospam007]

"I assume the connection it uses is encrypted? So how do you know it's not sending them everything? "

The same way you know that your cellphone, your TV, your laptop and your xbox doesn't send them anything.
You don't.

Re:No sympathy

[nospam007]

"Some people like the convenience of a voice assistant.

Some people like meth, too. That doesn't mean that it's a smart decision."

But it's big business.
s) Heisenberg

Re:I'm pretty sure that would be considered....

[bluefoxlucid]

I recall a dude who set up his house with all kinds of automation. His friend showed up and he's like "I'll let you in" "Oh don't worry. SIRI, OPEN THE DOOR!" and the front door unlocks. Doesn't even do voice print recognition; just stand outside, shout loudly, and the front door unlocks.

Things become less a crime and more your own fault when they don't cause any substantial harm and are inflicted with little to no effort or reasonable consideration. A reasonable person doesn't walk up to your house and open your door, or reach into your pocket and fish out your phone to pull up a YouTube video; but he might yell "Siri, what is a billion times a billion" and run from the cacophony of phones trying to answer.

unlike Cortana or Siri you can change Alexa Name

[williamyf]

Unlike in the cases of Cortana and Siri, you can change Alexa's Name to a number of pre-defined alternative names (currently 4, pettition amazon for more).

While I concur with people saying that this technology has security implications and is best avoided, I sugest changing the wake voice command (name) of your smart speaker as a way to lower this type of pranks.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/help...

Re:The only way I'd have such a device

[JohnFen]

What the hell is wrong with people?

I would never go along with it, but I agree with another commenter here that I don't think it's reasonable to say that people who are OK with all of that have something wrong with them.

That is, in effect, saying that anyone who has different priorities than you are in some way broken or wrong. It's just not true -- they merely have different priorities.

If other people are OK with privacy invasions I am not OK with, that's no skin off of my nose. We each get to choose how we live our lives.

Re:This was the only funny thing about episode

[93 Escort Wagon]

I know its episode 1, but i asked my wife after, was any of that funny to you?

Are we still talking about South Park, or were the two of you doing something else?

Re:I'm pretty sure that would be considered....

[spun]

It is much better for someone to play a joke on the public, and make them realize the dangers inherent in the devices they own, than to wait until a hacker does it and steals their identity or uses their home network to serve kiddie porn.

Incompetence

[thesupraman]

If you cannot manage to approximate 3.5 times 1/3 well enough to do for a recipe, then I suggest you would probably not be allowed to cook unsupervised.
I mean, at worse you could add 1/3 of a table spoon three and a half times..
O perhaps with out that 3 times 1/3 must be, you know, 1, and then another half of 1/3, so is a sixth (or put another way, irrelevant in cooking).

But no, instead you need to use a cloud based voice recognition and interpretation system located somewhere else in the world to work that out?

We really are in the shit..

Convenience should not be so important.

[jbn-o]

I can't stress enough how much the parent poster's point matters: you're choosing to install a spy in your home/office.

People make the same choice when they take a tracker (aka "cell phone", "mobile phone") with them when they use the toilet or leave it next to their bed. Would it be okay if someone trailed you with a mic on a boom and hung it over the stall as you used the toilet or had sex in your bed? Ask people that and they'd probably object on the grounds of a loss of privacy. Yet if that mic (which is connected to the Internet, operated with proprietary software, and doesn't have an indicator light) also let you browse the web, check your email, and play games this becomes okay? Then the concept of privacy was never the issue.

We've learned most people apparently don't need voice control to order stuff from Internet-based distributors including amazon.com. You should not trade away your privacy, ever, and the low price some place on their privacy indicates they need more education.

Alexa: pull my finger

[RuffMasterD]

I don't have a significant other, you insensitive clod! And speaking of lonely, it brings me joy knowing that at least Amazon is listening to me fart loudly in bed.