Liberated Systemd(github.com) |
Liberated Systemd(github.com) |
However, 1) he is right, and 2) systemd's recent full-throated embrace of AI for programming make it clear that systemd really is in dire need of a fork. This project has gone full corporate insanity.
I was never one of the vocal anti-systemd folks (I think it's a huge improvement over SysV-style boot stuff), but the risk of this project was always the monoculture aspect. It's on approximately every Linux install, and it's going bad FAST.
Like... they could say they entirely ban agents usage in their repo but how likely is that someone that wants to use them just doesn't contribute because of the policy instead of hiding the usage?
IIRC it also effectively is the same policy as the Linux kernel.
I think this is the main reason why sane people are revolting against age groups, because mandatory KYC to use a locked-down Linux begins exactly with that: a small integer field in userdb.
Why would adding a field for a birthdate be "mass surveillance" anymore than having fields for email, full name, etc.?
“Information, once collected, will be misused.”
― Richard Stallman, How Much Surveillance Can Democracy Withstand?, 2013
I'm pretty sure most people already have their birthdate somewhere on their computer.
Then the only thing remaining is convincing a critical mass that development now happens over at `Jeffrey-Sardina/systemd` on GitHub.
This piece of software is useless and cannot be employed anywhere and it’s essentially a futile exercise in virtue-signalling.
The problem is not technical, it’s political.
Go and make some actual political activism, don’t shit out useless software.
Ageless Linux is a similar project, but with a larger possible impact, as it has the potential to serve as a test case for overturning the law. By directly and flagrantly violating the law, it serves as a magnet for prosecution.
https://github.com/systemd/systemd/commit/71ad73569d9a5e2588...
Store birth date in systemd for age verification
You can put "Luke Skywalker" into the name fields, or even nothing at all, and there's no legal mandate that those fields be filled in or accurate.
The birthdate, however, has a legal mandate to be correct and checked for correctness by the software developers of the OS.
For example, if you visit facebook, tinder, or your bank and any of them store and communicate your actual age, the OS is mandated that it must update that field. Google's creepy analytics would also get involved here as if you put your age as a 99 year old, but google analytics show you are more likely to be 20->25 then the OS is supposed to update that age field with the better information from google.
And of course, facebook, google, and every other website can ask your browser for an age range and they are required to report it. Which makes this a symbiotic leaking of information.
All of this is about destroying anonymity on the internet. Today it's the age that needs to be perfect with communication efforts. Tomorrow it'll be the name. And of course, that will all be linked to every social media account.
Why is this bad? In many governments, it isn't. However, this presents a clear mechanism to track and monitor people who dissent with the government.
please tell me which law mandates that the birthdate that I put in a config file on my PC has to be correct?
The only commit is removing a user birthday field.
I am kind of hoping systemd succeeds in adding age validation. That will probably enable distros like Slackware to fly under the radar. My only worry is Firefox, Chrome will be changed to expect this systemd validation.
Folks have absolutely lost the plot on this one. These laws are stupid, this implementation is fine. Be mad at your legislators, being mad at some swedish guy won't help you any.
This information is supposed to be passed by browsers to the sites you visit, so that they would implement age verification.
The systemd maintainers are among the first who have rushed to be compliant with the new law, even if compliance with abusive laws does not seem the right solution. In the so-called land-of-the-free, any law that commands people how to use their own property in circumstances when what they do cannot affect in any way other humans, should have been struck down as anti-constitutional. Laws might require Web sites to have some kind of age verification, but they may not decide what people can or cannot run on their own computers.
If the legislators were so concerned about age verification, there are easy and non-invasive solutions, like providing a way for each adult to obtain (without recording this transaction) a device that generates one-time codes for age verification (like they were used for online banking before the current fashion of using smartphone apps). Or if that is too expensive, some printed cards with a list of codes with temporary validity could be used, or other such methods that can verify age without providing user identity. Even such methods are worse than the right solution, which is to use parental controls instead of age verification at the sites.
The requirements of the law are incredibly stupid and for now they are trivial to circumvent, but the fear is that this is only the beginning. After the legislators see that they can force anyone to work to implement such ridiculous demands, they will demand more, eventually leading to privacy-restricting measures that will no longer be easy to circumvent.
[1] https://winbuzzer.com/2026/03/18/reddit-user-uncovers-meta-2...
They don't understand that it's still all on your computer and you can of course set the birthdate to whatever you want (or not set it at all).
tl;dr: it's a tinfoil hat fork
Though the main problem would be that there isn't a "national ID number" everywhere in the world, so the format would be near arbitray.
Steam also asks you for your birth year all the time when visiting some of their pages, it's annoying as hell because you can't just type the year, you have to select it from a drop down list. They store it in a cookie, which is cool as it makes the process more streamlined. So you're also saying that this is a bad thing?
There is no law requiring you to put the correct birth date in a config file on your PC, the same as there is no law requiring you to write the correct birthdate on your wall calendar or whatever.
I bet the browser gets it.
Like if a browser offered up full unfettered filesystem access without any prompt or consent that'd be a browser issue, not a linux issue, right?
So... I don't really get your argument. If two pieces of software conspire against my privacy, one to store the data and one to transmit it, why can't I blame them both?
You can all come back when that supposed "law to force OSS to implement an actual age verification" is being discussed.
Otherwise, please get rid of all your knives (those are used to stab people by the thousands RIGHT NOW!) and your guns (those are used to shoot people by the thousands RIGHT NOW!) before complaining about a feature that is killing nobody
It's in both the Colorado and California laws.
The nasty part of the law isn't that a technically minded person can easily circumvent it. The nasty part is that you have to circumvent it and a lot of people likely won't. You circumventing it makes you stick out more than if you just leave it in place as is as the majority of people won't be doing that.
The point I and others are making is this is a law designed to track individuals and it only ramps up from here. And with this being the intent of the law, it's really only a matter of time before "sudo vim" becomes an illegal act. (or an act these governments attempt to make illegal).
The e-mail address also has a use, for important notifications. There are cases where the OS tries to send an email. But as I mentioned, I don't even know where to set it I've never been prompted and if I was I would leave it empty.
And you're free to not fill out this field aswell. Full name is probably a lot more unique and sensitive than birthdate
Do you think it's a good idea for operating systems to comply with 1 or 2 exceptionally retarded state laws? The full name is as far as I know never exposed to websites right?
Computers need to stay what they've always been. Chips that we run our programs on. Linux is the last free (as in freedom) option and they will try to take that away too.
Right now this is just one more field in a database (config file), nothing more and nothing less. Claiming it's the first step to "making sudo illegal" is quite a large stretch, don't you think? If that were the case, Windows DRM, Denuvo, and all those would also have been "the first step in making sudo illegal". Remember, circumventing DRM is against the law for ages now
There is and has for a long time been a field for full name.
There is now also a field for birthdate.
You are free to fill out neither or either.
Neither have a strong technical reason to be filled.
---
Your position:
You have no problem with the full name, but do have a problem with the birthdate.
You also agree that the field that you have no problem with (full name) is more sensitive than the one you don't (birthdate).
---
Have I summarized the situation correctly?
Do you not see the discrepancy in your position?
No, I don't care about either. It can be argued the full name is technically useful for the system administrators on a multi-user system, but I digress. They can add whatever field they want as long as it's optional.
I do however have a problem with regulating what an OS is required or allowed to do and what it has to collect and expose. Linux wasn't created in the US and there's no reason to comply with the California regulators. Will an empty birthdate field really comply with the law? Is that a fact as you claim?
> Do you not see the discrepancy in your position?
I see you reading more than what I'm actually saying. Breath and re-read what I've said and you will notice that I haven't (until this comment) mentioned my position.
While you're at it maybe answer the questions I asked you instead of replying with more questions, I'll quote them for you:
>> Do you think it's a good idea for operating systems to comply with 1 or 2 exceptionally retarded state laws? The full name is as far as I know never exposed to websites right?
I think it's a good thing for OS'es to have the capability to comply with laws when it does not impose undue burden on users or developers. This is to avoid there being 40 different forks/patches of a system that would probably be less transparent than having it in the upstream project.
Whether that capability is activated should always be optional. This field is optional.
Regarding this info being exposed to websites is not up to systemd. If for example firefox were to expose this info to websites without my consent I'd support a fork of firefox or stop using firefox.
As long as the info does not leave my computer I feel it is fearmongering to call it mass surveillance.
I also wonder how non-systemd Linux is going to handle it. I mean ultimately it may be baked into the kernel in some way or another. It would be pretty sad though.
In any case, I agree. This is just the first step.
> As long as the info does not leave my computer I feel it is fearmongering to call it mass surveillance.
You have to consider the timing and context of the change. What systemd does here is enabling Firefox to share that data (I'm guessing they'll be the last to comply though, Chrome and Safari will jump on it). If you would choose a fork of Firefox over Firefox exposing your data to websites, why are you so eagerly defending systemd exposing the same data to applications?
I tend to apply the same principles to all and react as soon as possible instead of waiting until it's too late. What use is there even of the field if it only stays on your machine, I assume you remember your own birthday?