- cross-posted to:
- privacy@programming.dev
- cross-posted to:
- privacy@programming.dev
Fork time? Maybe all the anti-systemd zealots were right all along…
Edit: To address whether it is likely that this change will affect users: Gnome is planning a stronger dependence on userdb, the part of systemd where this change is being implemented. https://blogs.gnome.org/adrianvovk/2025/06/10/gnome-systemd-dependencies/
Final Edit: The PR has been merged into main.
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Looks like this is just for storing the data (birth date). Distros can use it and do age restriction or ignore it. Not a big deal imo. Its not like systemd does anything more with the date.
I’ll start off my comment with something everyone can agree on: the age verification laws absolutely sucks. It’s a surveillance law masquerading as a means of “protecting” children. It also completely undermines free and open source projects, and therefore, protected speech. The fact systemd had to add a
BirthDatefield is unfortunate, however, I would blame the lawmakers for creating the law that the developers of systemd now have to comply with.I’m okay with the implementation. It is an optional (meaning you have to add it yourself) field which only specifies the date of birth. It doesn’t seem to be at all invasive, nor does it attempt to “verify” it at the moment. Granted, anything is possible, but I don’t think there’s a good enough reason why systemd would EVER feel the need to add age verification. Before you say anything regarding corporations, please answer this: why would a corporation add age verification to a system manager their servers depend on? How will that profit them?
I get why people are angry, but I think this anger should be funneled towards the lawmakers pulling off nonsense like this. Fight those who are actively trying to take your rights away. Bullying software developers for complying to international laws will lead to nothing but hate.
Give them an inch, and they will take a mile. Fuck this PR.
This is all to inch us towards an eventual Digital ID, similar to how we have a driver’s license for a car.
they also open accompanied PRs on this and I’m a little frightened
https://github.com/canonical/ubuntu-desktop-provision/pull/1338
https://github.com/archlinux/archinstall/pull/4290A question I have that I hope someone can answer: how is the age check at the OS level verified? Is it just a trust issue that the user is putting in the correct date?
omg the end is near
This is exactly what I had in mind with my opposition to systemd.
Didn’t expect to be proven right so soon.
this new anti-systemd sentiment reminds me of anti-TPM and anti-SecureBoot sentiment
having TPMs and SecureBoot on Linux machines has only ever empowered device owners to ensure that the software on their devices has not been tampered with
there’s never been a case where these technologies were used against Linux device owners
likewise, I predict that Linux device owners may find the age field useful for certain opt-in parental controls, but we’ll otherwise look back on this and shrug at the extreme paranoia
how do you think this can be most effectively fought?
Honestly the only way to fight all the corporate and govt data collection is to end the dictatorship of the Epstein class by overthrowing then. Until we can unite against them, they will continue to limit our speech in an effort to quell efforts to organize a resistance
it’s the only way i can truly think of. revolution feels so incredibly far away though.
there must be a way to resist this shit in the meantime.
🤷
In a few years, we may be smuggling in contraband Chinese RISC-V computers.
The fact that this shit sound like a dystopian future trope…
Huh, we really do live in a cyberpunk novel…
I’d done it, I’d smuggled in one of those RISC-whatever boxes. The hardware that doesn’t require a live-scan of your irises and your digital ID to interface. This baby can visit websites without even scanning your brainwaves. I don’t know what country it came from - You’re not allowed to know about foreign countries before you’re 40, the computer blocks them, it’s something about preventing “unauthorised gooning”.
Just as I sat down, I heard it - the info-chopper, they knew. I grabbed my illegal CPU just as the door was bust open, “INFORMATION PROTECTION OFFICER, CLOSE YOUR EYES AND TELL ME YOUR BIRTHDATE!” You see you’re only allowed to hear certain parts of our rights depending on your details, it’s to protect you from dangerous information. Even seeing his face might evoke corrupted thoughts, but I didn’t care anymore.
I quickly, but pointedly, looked over, and saw him, cool leather jacket, gun, one of those brain-interceptor helmet things, like a hockey helmet made of cushions and diodes. “NO” I cried, “I WANT TO PLAY SNAKE WITHOUT PROVIDING MY SOCIAL SECURITY NUMBER!”.
With that war cry, I cheesed it, spurred on by the sky-high promise of reading a ‘potentially offensive’ Wikipedia article, in private.
Only to be backdoored by the Red instead of the Orange.
Someone call Dr. Strange, he fucked up this timeline real bad.
Email your legislators telling them that parents already have access to network block tools, these laws won’t stop the problem anyway (run through a vpn), they’re a free speech nightmare, they’re collecting more data on American citizens when America has data breaches losing data every few days, and Congress literally studied this twenty years ago and decided it wasn’t a good idea then, what makes it a good idea now?
uh…$? same reason the majority of US politicians vote anyway on anything put in front of them.
the only thing sacred in the USA is $
Largely true, though I think $ is a secondary consideration to some of the genocidal eugenicists, fundamentalists, supremacists, jingoist hegemons, etc.
I’ll never buy a computer that can’t be run without this shit. If that means I run what I have until it breaks and then never have a PC again then that’s what I’ll do
The last computer I bought (a couple of years back) was a decade old PC, the price was €10 or so. I needed to add RAM, SSD, and used it for a couple of years as a Fedora Workstation desktop. It was plenty powerful for most of my needs. I’m not too worried about it. I think I can survive on a machine like that.
You won’t be able to afford RAM and SSD though.
Unless first worlders get out of their comfort zone and fight back, nothing can be done.
so much for making our own tech!
What if users are redefined as context? Now the is does not have users anymore. That’s not a ‘root’ user, it’s a ‘root’ context. And that’s non root context with supercontext privileges
By implementing it all in the most brain dead, user space writable fashion
The least effective way is whining on a Lemmy community about open source projects.
Go talk to your lawmakers, not the people complying with the law.
DRM writers love this too.
In my opinion, storing a date is pretty much irrelevant unless there’s a process that validates the supplied date, otherwise every Linux user was born on 1/1/1, if not, an administrator can “fix” that
Furthermore, that
systemdthinks that it’s the place to store such information is in my opinion beyond absurd.Who appointed that project the source of age truth in the Linux ecosystem? What discussion was there, who was consulted and where was the vote?
Exactly. This is a massive overreach, and it is crazy that Poettering is even considering merging this.
I would say the majority of objections to systemd pertain to perceived overreaches of the project (perceptions I generally share). So in that sense, it is kind of on brand.
it is crazy that Poettering is even considering merging this
You’ve, uh, seen systemd, right? Cmon; this is just one more section for the cancer to eat.
He thinks that systemd is desktop linux.
and it is crazy that Poettering is even considering merging this.
Not familiar with him then?
1/1/1
every linux user is jesus confirmed
Everyone knows Jesus was born one 0001-12-25
Is he dumb? It’s been almost 12 months since A. D. started. What was he waiting for
You’re right that asking a user for a date is next to useless. However, that isn’t a reason to not fight this stuff. Asking the user for the date is step one to getting people accept it. After that they’ll point out that people were lying, and they’ll need our government ID to verify (and link us to activity). It’s all a step towards a surveillance network tracking every move you make on your computer.
I understand your point and agree that this is the thin end of the wedge.
What we’re doing here is discussing the phenomenon and I’m highlighting some concerns.
I believe that this is how you get a dialogue happening which will effect change, which is what we’re both advocating.
I think that age verification is about surveillance rather than protecting children and I think it should be fought at every level.
This is me contributing to that fight.
Come on, you know it’s going to be 1/1/1970 most of the time.
This change is mostly in the userdb code which is a sub-component of systemd that stores user records. It isn’t in the PID1 process. But I could see an argument for having it be part of the desktop environment in GNOME or something like that instead.
They haven’t fessed up yet that that’s part of their plan. I expect to hear from them after they’ve passed the first half.
I was ambivalent about systemd up until now. If this gets merged I’m moving to a non-systemd distro. I do not live in California or even the USA. I do not want age verification garbage in my OS.
Iv not given a shit one way or another as well. But as a Californian I refuse to have this shit on my PC damn be what the law says.
Consider PCLinuxOS: they’re an RPM-based mandriva (mandrake/conectiva) derivative with really great and wide compatibility in stacks without the ‘modules’ shitfest RH started after no one remembered what ‘alternatives’ was for.
They don’t use systemd, but their installation is a bit shite as it’s a “live CD” installer – they pruned out the proper templatey install that mandriva has. But so far that’s the biggest issue. If they can get off networkManager we’ll be even better off, though.
There’s also kaOS
There’s also Linux MX, Debian based, on their latest release they added systemd as an option, but you can choose sysv at first boot if you want, and that’s what will be installed and used.
Good news: this is not age verification. This is an optional DoB field on a user profile.
It’s being added as a response to the age verification laws with the intended purpose to provide the age signal.
It’s age verification/attestation.
No. It’s a date of birth. You’re right that age verification comes next, but this is not it. Had this field been present before, none of this would matter.
Contact your representative, not your local FOSS maintainer.
Contact your representative, not your local FOSS maintainer.
They’re not a US citizen.
They also didn’t say they would contact the maintainers. They said they’d just change distro to a non-systemd one.
And you’re nothing but silly trying to act like this isn’t about age “verification”. We know it is, because it comes in response to the new california law
If you’re (or they) not a US citizen (or Brazilian) why would you care if they comply with local laws?
They stated that reason very clearly in their original comment. I suggest you read it if you want to know why.
Yes I can read.
Contact your representative
Right, so that they can ask if I’m stoned or stupid for asking them to affect laws in another country?
Then this doesn’t impact you in any form. (Especially since it’s just a DoB).
You can continue to whine but frankly I don’t see the point then.Of course it does. This particular change may seem innocuous in itself, but the idea of compliance with ridiculous laws like this one, in one jurisdiction, being implemented in a project used globally will result in compromising everyone’s privacy/security, regardless of whether they are even subject to that law or not.
If anything, it’s more troubling for those outside the relevant jurisdiction, since we get 0 say on the laws, and have no actual reason to comply.
Something feels fishy… The user who made this pull request has more than doubled his contributions to various repositories since January (from 20–400 to more than 1100), and this is his first pull request in the systemd repo.
They bought a second computer so they can ask Claude for twice as much code.
Fishy how? As in a state-level backdooring like was the case with XZ and Jia Tan or are you weary of something else?
That memory surely also prompted this feeling. It’s just that Meta seems to be putting a lot of effort everywhere to push for this. Not so difficult to put, or corrupt, or push, people in dev communities and repos.
Very fishy…
That guy is either a massive bootlicker or a fucking plant. Who goes around vulentarily adding birth date fields to EVERY project they can contribute to?
This is a big weakness in FOSS communities, hell, in capitalist existence. People with resources can afford to spend their own time or hire someone else to focus on their contributions like a full time job while most honest contributers will be doing it during their free time because they need to pay bills and such.
You mean they’re complying with Meta’s age verification at OS level lobbying?
https://github.com/upper-up/meta-lobbying-and-other-findings
i think it’s really wholesome that a lot of 126 year old people use linux
While I think it’s amazing that not only are 95% of Linux users 56 years of age, but they even share the same birth date!
Yes, the Unix epoch is the obvious choice of birth date here
We should all agree on a common birthday, until operating systems enforce ID upload
you missed the joke I think: Thu Jan 01 1970 00:00:01 GMT+0000,
UNIX timestamp https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unix_time
All those leap seconds…
Rick Astley’s birthday is 6th Feb 1966, just saying
76 years old from day law is passed to honor System76 for having some nuts and being proactive.
