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An Open Database Leaked Submissions To Utah's 'Bathroom Bill' Snitch Form (404media.co) 251

samleecole writes: Utah set up an online form for people to accuse other citizens and public establishments of violating the state's recently-enacted transphobic "bathroom bill." The submission form is being flooded with memes and troll comments, and the auditor also left the submissions database open to the public -- without a password, authentication, or any other protections that would keep anyone from viewing other people's submissions.

After 404 Media contacted the auditor's office for comment, they changed the permissions to require authentication. The form link has been posted to Twitter, and people have repeatedly posted screenshots of themselves uploading memes. In the database, those included photos of Barry Wood, characters from Bee Movie, and Shutterstock images of bull testicles. Twitter users have also found a link to the database that the form is connected to, which is hosted on a public Google cloud console bucket that as of Thursday, required no authentication to view. I tested the form, and found that my submission -- a photo of the yelling table cat meme -- appeared instantly in the Google Console bucket. The submission form offers anonymity with the option for the state auditor to contact submitters for more details. I haven't seen names and contact information shared in the database, but comments and image attachments were easily viewable.

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An Open Database Leaked Submissions To Utah's 'Bathroom Bill' Snitch Form

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  • Transphobic (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Iamthecheese ( 1264298 ) on Friday May 03, 2024 @10:27AM (#64444800)
    Well I know where the editor stands on this topic. The problem is, I shouldn't.
    • Re:Transphobic (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Himmy32 ( 650060 ) on Friday May 03, 2024 @10:45AM (#64444858)
      The rational of the bill is a fear of transgender people in women's restrooms. Regardless of political lean that's the meaning of the word transphobic.
      • Re:Transphobic (Score:5, Insightful)

        by stwrtpj ( 518864 ) on Friday May 03, 2024 @10:52AM (#64444878) Journal

        On a previous job, I had a colleague who was openly gay, One day, I'm in the bathroom taking a piss. He walks in and starts doing his business in the urinal next to me. I thought nothing of it. Why? Because he's not there to hit on other men or sneak peeks at guys' wieners. He was there same as me, to take a piss, and that's it. Ever since then, I realized all the talk about being the bathroom police to be utterly stupid.

        NEWS FLASH! If someone is going into the "wrong" bathroom for illicit purposes, no law is going to stop that.

        • Re:Transphobic (Score:4, Insightful)

          by Powercntrl ( 458442 ) on Friday May 03, 2024 @11:29AM (#64444986) Homepage

          Actually, as a gay guy, I've always found the concept of sharing a restroom with the sex you find yourself attracted to, to be rather unsettling. It's just really odd that we treat going to the bathroom while out and about as some weird communal experience in the first place. I'd much prefer the privacy of individual rooms, and then no one has to give a fuck about the gender or sexual orientation of the person using it.

          • I don't think there's anyone who doesn't prefer individual restrooms, they're just a lot more expensive and they take up considerable additional space.
            • I don't like having to deal with a seat that some shit head has pissed all over. So, I'm really not bothered by urinals and always use them even when the stalls are free.

              Also WTF is with the massive gaps under the walls in American toilets?

          • privacy ha - have you seen a US bathroom, there's a 2" gap around the door
        • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

          The worst part is that this is getting cis women attacked. Bathroom police see someone who doesn't fit their idea of what a women should look like, say because they have cancer, or just don't choose to dress a certain, and they accuse them of being trans.

          Just like they used to accuse women of being gay if they didn't dress to please straight men.

      • The rational of the bill is a fear of transgender people in women's restrooms.

        Oddly enough, no one ever talks about women going into men's restrooms. The same with lesbian sex. People such as those in Utah will whine about gay sex, but they will always men sex between two (or more) men. Never between women.

        Funny that.
        • Oddly enough, no one ever talks about women going into men's restrooms. The same with lesbian sex. People such as those in Utah will whine about gay sex, but they will always men sex between two (or more) men. Never between women.

          Double standard, one of the many.

          With women...they can "experiment"...and come back to the home team.

          But as a guy..you suck one dick........

      • Re:Transphobic (Score:5, Informative)

        by RobinH ( 124750 ) on Friday May 03, 2024 @12:20PM (#64445174) Homepage
        Except that since trans women have been starting to be admitted to women's prisons they've been tracking sexual assault data for all groups and trans women commit sexual assaults at a significantly higher rate than cis women. one source of many [parliament.uk]. also this [torontosun.com]. You can't just slap "-phobic" on the end of a word and argue it's automatically wrong. If a woman says she's at higher risk of being sexually assaulted by a trans woman than by a natal female, the data supports her.
        • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

          This sounds a lot like "black people statistically commit more crimes, so laws targeting them aren't racist."

    • Are you a member of the party of small government and personal responsibility?

    • Re:Transphobic (Score:5, Informative)

      by Powercntrl ( 458442 ) on Friday May 03, 2024 @11:19AM (#64444966) Homepage

      Well I know where the editor stands on this topic. The problem is, I shouldn't.

      Slashdot got its start as a pet project by Rob Malda, where he'd post random things he found interesting. Impartiality isn't something you usually find on what is essentially still just a blog.

    • by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Friday May 03, 2024 @11:31AM (#64445002)
      there's zero evidence that letting trans people use their correct bathrooms hurts anyone. There's *lots* of cases of trans men getting the shit kicked out of them when they're forced to walk into a women's bathroom or vice versa for trans women.

      And that's the point. It's supposed to put trans people at risk in public spaces so they're forced to detransition for safety. A kind of genocide. This dispite the fact that trans healthcare has a 98% success rate with most of the remaining 2% detransitioning because of social pressure, not because they felt they shouldn't transition.

      I've got a bad back. Surgery was offered. It has a 60% success rate. I skipped it because it was difficult and painful and 60% was a low success rate. I'm doing physical therapy. But you can bet your *ass* if my doctor said "98% and by the way most of that remaining 2% is because people with back surgery have to use the wrong bathroom" I'd have done it.

      Facts don't care about your feelings. I get it. Trans people weird you out. Uncanny valley effect kicks in. But that's a you problem, not a them problem.
      • And having multiple individual private bathrooms is a net benefit for women. Ever seen a line outside of the men's bathroom? Why do men have the same number of toilets with most sitting idle? Or just better private stalls and a completely shared bathroom.

        • by Himmy32 ( 650060 )
          As for why, it's pretty clear that building more stalls or more private stalls costs more money/space.
      • It's supposed to put trans people at risk in public spaces so they're forced to detransition for safety.

        The risk to sufficiently nonconformist cis women is also a happy accident as far as the proponents are concerned.

  • I can certainly credit, if not condone, that software developers would do less than the bare minimum when it comes to securing their systems. I'm more surprised that there are still widely-available software systems out there that don't make you specify ANY kind of password, however halfassed, on a database.
  • Oh noes! (Score:5, Funny)

    by dskoll ( 99328 ) on Friday May 03, 2024 @10:37AM (#64444820) Homepage

    It'd be an awful shame if the form [web.app] were to be flooded with jokes, memes, salacious images or other such tomfoolery that prevented the good leaders of Utah from addressing the most pressing problem in the state and stopped them from efficiently policing hallowed state potties.

  • You know what? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by ArchieBunker ( 132337 ) on Friday May 03, 2024 @10:44AM (#64444846)

    I can go an entire day without daydreaming about who has a penis and who doesn't. That seems incredibly difficult for certain people.

  • by Murdoch5 ( 1563847 ) on Friday May 03, 2024 @10:55AM (#64444886) Homepage
    How? Being able to post, truly, anonymous is hard, you have to willingly strip out information, and any tracking before submission. Even having the IP address of the person posting, or the User Agent, is enough to possibly identity them. If you're careful, and willing you can make an anonymous submission form, but 999/1000 times you hear the “the process is anonymous”, it's a lie.

    Try designing a meaningful form that is private, anonymous, trackable, and can collect meaningful information. It's not impossible, but doing so is extremely difficult.
  • by remoteshell ( 1299843 ) on Friday May 03, 2024 @11:12AM (#64444932)
    Utah's LDS folks have been doing geneological databases for a long time, and their work has always seemed pretty proficient and secure. Say what you want about their beliefs, but folks from Deseret know database. In my experience Mormon goobers are the exception, at least in the IT world. This is why I suspect that some IT wag deliberately exposed this piece of asininity.
    • Utah's LDS folks have been doing geneological databases for a long time, and their work has always seemed pretty proficient and secure.

      When you're baptising non-Mormons after they die [theguardian.com], and penalizing those who speak up against the practice, you better believe their database needs to be secure.
      • You mean baptizing Mormons standing in proxy for the dead. They can do whatever they want in that regard. They're not digging up bodies.

        • They can do whatever they want in that regard.

          What right to they have to do anything to anyone else? Would they like it if Satanists started doing something similar? It's none of their business who a person is if that person wasn't part of their cult.*

          This is one of many problems with mentally ill religious people. They stick their noses in everyone else's business when they have no right to do so.

          By definition, all religions are cults but not all cults are religions.
          • Who are they doing something to? They're just exercising a right to speech and association. We don't have to like it but we don't get to say they didn't have the rights.

    • Given that knowledge isn't passed along genetically, it's silly to assume that everyone in Utah is equally adept at securing databases. Doubly so because this was a government driven project and likely done on the cheap.

      We've seen plenty of stupidly-unprotected databases before. You don't have to look any further than "incompetence" to find the reason.

  • What else is new? There is no reason to believe these people will have better control of technology than they do of their lives.

  • At my supermarket, the re-designed the bathrooms to provide complete privacy, with a large, locked door to the toilet. There is a common area to wash up, but otherwise, who cares who is peeing or pooping? All bathrooms should be this way. Controversy over. additionally, schools that require students to shower, should also provide for completely private showers. I think it would almost eliminate bullying and harassment.
    • In my town, a restaurant did exactly that. Private toilets, for any gender, and a common area to wash up. I thought "perfect!"

      But, guess what, there was a big commotion from local conservative, religious people and politicians, including a boycott to the place and trying to prohibit the solution through legislation.

      Because, it turns out, the problem wasn't really the one they always claimed (transgender men using women's bathroom). The problem to them was, obviously, acknowledging and accomodating transgend

  • it's already illegal to assault people in bathrooms, that's why laws like this are transphobic.
  • by peterww ( 6558522 ) on Friday May 03, 2024 @02:55PM (#64445606)

    In Europe, people don't get freaked out by penises and vaginas and breasts. Kids are exposed to them on beaches and in the media and they are not traumatized. Spas and saunas are naked friendly and cross-gender. Even some changing rooms are basically separated by empty space.

    Americans are just afraid. Afraid of what they'll do, afraid of what others will do, afraid of what they won't. They're afraid of the body, they're afraid of foreigners, afraid of religion, afraid of people who don't have religion. Afraid of God, afraid of women, afraid of men. Afraid of strangers, afraid of the person who lives next door. Americans are drenched in fear.

    Stop being a bunch of frady cat pussies, Americans. Stop telling everyone what to do. Live your own fucking life and stop getting into everyone else's business. And stop trying to stop people from living their own lives. Live and let fucking live.

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