Listening
Listening
[Black Hat and Danish enter Cueball and Ponytail's house. They have hardly passed the door mat, with the door still open showing the road and another house outside.] Ponytail: Hello, welcome to our house! Black Hat: Thanks for inviting us! Black Hat: Alexa, order two tons of creamed corn. Black Hat: Alexa, confirm purchase.
[Caption below the frame:] When visiting a new house, it's good to check whether they have an always-on device transmitting your conversations somewhere.

This comic depicts Cueball and Ponytail welcoming Black Hat and Danish to their house. Black Hat immediately talks to Amazon Alexa to order two tons of creamed corn . This would be quite expensive (around $10,000), and the hosts would be charged because it was ordered on their Amazon Echo device. It would also be a serious inconvenience, as the purchase would be quite bulky and useless, seeing as an average person would have very little use for two tons of creamed corn. [ citation needed ]
The caption claims that this is an effort to find systems recording conversations, such as Alexa or Google Home , for the security of the guests , so they aren't being monitored by an always-on listening device without their consent (at least not without any consequences). However, because Black Hat is the one coming up with this it's more likely his motives are on the sadistic side, and it's more likely a warning for the hosts to turn off any voice-activated systems before having guests come over, so that the guests don't take advantage of them. (It should also be noted that such purchasing services encourage the user to set up a PIN code to stem off such exploits.)
A concerned "visitor" may also want to test for voice-activated systems when near any persons carrying an iPhone or Android mobile device, because these are also always-on listening devices. "Hey Siri" and "Ok Google" voice activation use the same technology as "Alexa" and "Echo" detection.
The title text says that this takes care of the "host gift thing", referring to the custom where house guests give a gift to the hosts. However, Black Hat is making the hosts pay for it, so it can be as expensive as he wants, thus making this yet another example of his being a classhole . For more examples of this, see the trivia below.
[Black Hat and Danish enter Cueball and Ponytail's house. They have hardly passed the door mat, with the door still open showing the road and another house outside.] Ponytail: Hello, welcome to our house! Black Hat: Thanks for inviting us! Black Hat: Alexa, order two tons of creamed corn. Black Hat: Alexa, confirm purchase.
[Caption below the frame:] When visiting a new house, it's good to check whether they have an always-on device transmitting your conversations somewhere.
