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Store birth date in systemd for age verification

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Re: Store birth date in systemd for age verification

#101

Post by wolvoleo »

egorfine wrote: post #92
wolvoleo wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What other benefit is there to remote attestation? Because their "verification" stamp is just that. It's certainly not got any benefit for the user.

> What other benefit is there to remote attestation? There certainly are benefits and they are huge. Like, I can make sure my servers are untampered, I would love that. Problem is, that technology, once unveiled, will be inevitably used for surveillance. Like, online KYC required to use a computer and you cannot patch this shit out because your Linux build is attested and no banking or government website will let you…

> There certainly are benefits and they are huge. Like, I can make sure my servers are untampered, I would love that.

But who decides what is untampered and can you still modify stuff yourself. I don't want my servers to be immutable for example. And only be 'allowed' to do what the vendor wants me to.

But anyway, that is not really remote attestation. That is local attestation because you can see it on your own server. It's only remote if it attests to someone else.

And yes exactly, the second point is exactly why I hate remote attestation so much. Hope we can hack around it for a while but eventually they will stick that stuff in hardware, I'm sure. That will make it a lot harder.

Re: Store birth date in systemd for age verification

#102

Post by herewulf »

coldacid wrote: post #68
jmclnx wrote: post #32

Interesting solution and I really expected systemd would be were this age validation would be placed if distros what it. But if this becomes a thing in Linux for the distro I use (doubtful), I will abandon Linux after 30+ years. I am rather confident OpenBSD will ignore this law and I expect other BSDs will to. If not, back to DOS :) Note, I have a BSD on a coupld of old laptops for testing reasons. I test what I wri…

You can always use a distro that doesn't use systemd or roll your own. Sure you lose the GNOME desktop environment, but if you ask me that's a net positive.

I have been successfully using the GNOME desktop environment for years on Guix System which uses Shepherd as its init. KDE is an option too.

Other, more traditional distros are out there that work fine with GNOME, etc with no problems.

Re: Store birth date in systemd for age verification

#103

Post by t312227 »

fdghrtbrt wrote: post #93

Could someone clarify for a linux newbie like me... In practical terms, what does this mean? I'm on Debian so presumably Debian will eventually pick this update, and then what? When I upgrade my system I'll get a prompt asking for my date of birth?

hello,

as always: imho. (!)

idk the exact procedure which will apply to enter the birth-date on such a system, but if other comments are correct: just enter what you want!

there will be no real possibility to tie this to anything "legal" / to "enforce" any "official" check of lets say your passport or other governmental id.

and if in my personal opinion (!) the pretty crazy guy behind the systemd-project tries to introduce/enforce such a thing ...

then i think it'll be time to either fork the project or look at systemd-free linux distributions like devuan ~ a systemd-free fork of debian :)

* https://devuan.org

just my 0.02€

Re: Store birth date in systemd for age verification

#104

Post by [deleted] »

herewulf wrote: post #100
bravetraveler wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hypotheticals are truly exhausting! I had a wall of text and chopped most of it off. This started out as a joke and now it's dead, thanks. The failure/assumption of under-13 or whatever, as a result of manipulation, is fine. I'm not actually trying to solution something though, jeez. I find it more compelling to say, for instance, "x% of our users have chosen not to share their information" ... rather than "y% have n…

I think the loudest way you can protest is to use and support distros that do not have systemd. There are lots to choose from in 2026.

[deleted]

Re: Store birth date in systemd for age verification

#105

Post by egorfine »

wolvoleo wrote: post #101
egorfine wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What other benefit is there to remote attestation? There certainly are benefits and they are huge. Like, I can make sure my servers are untampered, I would love that. Problem is, that technology, once unveiled, will be inevitably used for surveillance. Like, online KYC required to use a computer and you cannot patch this shit out because your Linux build is attested and no banking or government website will let you…

> There certainly are benefits and they are huge. Like, I can make sure my servers are untampered, I would love that. But who decides what is untampered and can you still modify stuff yourself. I don't want my servers to be immutable for example. And only be 'allowed' to do what the vendor wants me to. But anyway, that is not really remote attestation. That is local attestation because you can see it on your own serv…

> eventually they will stick that stuff in hardware, I'm sure

That's the endgame, totally.

Re: Store birth date in systemd for age verification

#106

Post by egorfine »

surajrmal wrote: post #95
egorfine wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gasing the Jews was the law as well.

The two couldn't be more unrelated. The idea that age verification in an OS is bad is a niche position by a select few. You don't hear dissenting views on hackernews because the majority here belong to that group and going against the grain is down voted. On the other hand, you're comparing it to killing humans. Making everything into a moral dilemma cheapens the argument. Just because you disagree with the law doesn…

This is an argument that the law sometimes is clearly in the wrong.

> The idea that age verification in an OS is bad is a niche position by a select few

I am pretty sure that's not true.

Re: Store birth date in systemd for age verification

#107

Post by monksy »

The author is not from the places where he claims that these are laws. The Californian law is not in effect.

Dylan M. Taylor's GH profile claims that he's from Durham, NC (which does not have this law). He also references to a draft to xdg-desktop-portal which has not been accepted. (Add parental controls to the Accounts portal: https://github.com/flatpak/xdg-desktop-portal/pull/1922)

I'm asking:

- What is this guy's personal interest in pushing this through? (It seems non-neccessary and is questionable at what the end goal)

- Who's political agenda is he sponsoring for this?

- Is he getting financially incentivized to do this?

Re: Store birth date in systemd for age verification

#108

Post by monksy »

surajrmal wrote: post #99
wpm wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except systemd isn't an OS. xdg-desktop-portal is not an OS. None of these projects need to flop over and acquiesce to this overreach.

This is optional functionality which a subset of their important customers want. You will continue to have options that do not make use of this feature. As someone with children, I see benefits in how age verification will help me manage my kids relationship with technology. Even if it was not the law, I would choose products with support. The point of open source is to allow for both options.

Linux and OSS has customers?

Re: Store birth date in systemd for age verification

#109

Post by btbuildem »

This is a dangerous precedent, and should be nipped in the bud, squashed, blended, spat on and flushed.

Acquiescing to (however veiled and excused) authoritarian overreach is not the way forward. The correct attitude towards this "Think of the Children but Really Think of the Advertisers' Profits" initiative is to let California (and other proponents) to figure out how they can do business without Linux or any other software that depends on it.

OSS is a bastion of freedom -- real freedom, freedom FROM, not American Freedom (freedom to abuse and exploit others). We must defend it. DO NOT COMPLY.

Re: Store birth date in systemd for age verification

#110

Post by monksy »

aleph_minus_one wrote: post #46
flykespice wrote: post #41

It's scary how much global surveillance is closing in to become a reality with states passing these lesgilations, in the name of "protecting children", but it just serves to collect citizent personal data... And now they are creeping into open source projects too. What once was thought as the bastion of absolute freedom from the state

> and now it's creeping into open source projects too. What once was thought as the bastion of absolute freedom from the state It is indeed scary is how compliant the open-source projects have become to the "governmental overlords". Where has the hacker spirit gone?

In my previous comment here.. I do question what's this guys motivation to do this. It's incredibly suspicious and I question the guys motives.
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