Anti-gay message appears on electronic construction sign

[accadacca]

Only in Provo, UT...

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PROVO — A portable electronic road sign was hacked overnight, leaving an offensive message flashing on the sign by the side of University Avenue, near I-15.

Following the instruction for drivers to "follow detour" the hacked sign read "God hates gays." The Utah Department of Transportation spokesperson Leigh Dethman says the sign was reprogrammed sometime over Tuesday night into Wednesday morning and the contractor took it down as soon as it was discovered.

UDOT says they take this very seriously and are investigating the incident, hoping to find out who did it and what can be done to keep it from happening again.

Provo City spokesperson Helen Anderson said that the sign's message was offensive and "does not reflect the opinion of the city."
People in Provo were upset by the sign, too.

"It's hateful and it doesn't help the dialogue for either cause," said one.

Others expressed their concern for the damage to the city's image, in addition to their offense.

"It makes Provo look bad too, it's just messed up," said another.

http://www.ksl.com/?sid=21631613&nid=148&s_cid=article-popular-1

[Byron]

Now, of course, everyone is going to ASSUME the state of Utah is crawling with bigots. Seems these days it only takes one bad apple. Perhaps we'll hear calls to "boycott Utah" soon...I'll have to look around to see if this made headlines in the dominate establishment liberal mass media. But then again, it's pretty well known that Utah is inhabited by inbred rednecks...heck, I've heard plenty of folks around here make that charge, and they live there.

Funny thing, if I could ask the guy who did that one question, it would be "If God hates gays, then why did he make them?"

I have a longtime client, a really nice, smart lady...she attends church regularly. I asked her that question, and she believes that no one is "born" gay. Something, at some point in their lives, makes them that way. Molestation, for example. I told her that I think they're born like that (I cited my cousin and youngest sister as examples), but she absolutely refused to even consider it.

I've learned not to concern myself so much with the way other people think...everyone has their bag, as I say. I think we would be all better off if this kind of shit is just ignored, instead of being turned into a "big problem".

[BruteForce]

One day, I hope this subject will just go away..

[restrac2000]

Provo handled that with grace.

[Don]

One day, I hope this subject will just go away..

No gays in Iran. I wonder how they got it to go away? :wink:

[DiscGo]

If the sign said "God hates Mormons" or "God Hates White People" nobody would care. Why can we dismiss ignorance from some groups or towards some groups and not others?

[Scott P]

I guess no one can be sure, but it is almost certainly a prank rather than meant to be serious. Still the outcome is serious.

Signs were being hacked all over Colorado recently. At first it was funny. Someone hacked into the sign at my friend's project and changed the sign to "Zombies Ahead" around Halloween. Since there wasn't a real message needed, it was kind of funny at the time.

Then it went out of control. Apparently, in order to improve safety and save on labor, some of the new signs were programmable by cell phone without even leaving your car. Good idea from a safety/labor standpoint, but if you knew what you were doing you could hack other people's signs with your cell phone. I think the feature can be disabled on the signs though and I don't know specifics of programming (I wasn't a TCS).