The context is that this is in response to California in the US potentially passing a law that requires age verification on the operating system level.
there is no verification happening though
Store birth date in systemd for age verification
21–30 of 129 posts
Re: Store birth date in systemd for age verification
#22Pretty good implementation imo
Yeah, it's the most basic thing you could do that's not intrusive to the rest of the system. userdb is a local directory and most directories, like LDAP, have a DoB field. Even if these laws fizzle out the change would still be potentially useful for other things like parental controls apps.
Re: Store birth date in systemd for age verification
#23This should be the time for open-source developers to use their common sense to decide whether we should push back. If California wants to create its own Protect the children operating system, it should bear the cost and responsibility for this alone, and not export any of the sketchy political agenda to the wider open source community.
It's the law. If you live in the United States, and a minor in California uses your OS that didn't check age, you could be liable for up to $2500 per occurrence. That can add up quickly if California schoolkids discover your OS does an end run around the law. When ruin is the alternative, compliance becomes non-negotiable.
Many distros disagree and are not complying. It’s very likely that this (and all similar bills) will be overturned after legal challenges. Noncommercial projects especially have a strong 1A case and we have already beaten one of these bills. Keep fighting.
Re: Store birth date in systemd for age verification
#24I cannot express how disappointed I am to see open source projects giving in to complying with age attestation laws. I feel like complying really undermines any first amendment arguments. Software is a first amendment protected form of expression, giving in before getting any actual threats from the state makes your participation seem voluntary. Systemd's participation puts the entire world into compliance with a Cal…
BSDs don’t use SystemD, neither do some distros. After they have been exposed here as collaborators I suspect we will see freedom-respecting distros move away from them. I myself have been neutral to weakly positive on SystemD until now, as they put forward some decent solutions to longstanding problems, but from now on I intend to stop using their software entirely.
As it turns out, the people who warned against “professionalizing” and corporatizing Linux were correct.
Re: Store birth date in systemd for age verification
#25This should be the time for open-source developers to use their common sense to decide whether we should push back. If California wants to create its own Protect the children operating system, it should bear the cost and responsibility for this alone, and not export any of the sketchy political agenda to the wider open source community.
It's the law. If you live in the United States, and a minor in California uses your OS that didn't check age, you could be liable for up to $2500 per occurrence. That can add up quickly if California schoolkids discover your OS does an end run around the law. When ruin is the alternative, compliance becomes non-negotiable.
California can't govern outside California. Other states have discovered the legal limits of their soverignty quite recently. But it certainly argues against hosting in CA and furthermore, consulting an attorney.
Re: Store birth date in systemd for age verification
#26This should be the time for open-source developers to use their common sense to decide whether we should push back. If California wants to create its own Protect the children operating system, it should bear the cost and responsibility for this alone, and not export any of the sketchy political agenda to the wider open source community.
It's the law. If you live in the United States, and a minor in California uses your OS that didn't check age, you could be liable for up to $2500 per occurrence. That can add up quickly if California schoolkids discover your OS does an end run around the law. When ruin is the alternative, compliance becomes non-negotiable.
California laws apply to people living in California. Not the whole country.
Re: Store birth date in systemd for age verification
#27The context is that this is in response to California in the US potentially passing a law that requires age verification on the operating system level.
there is no verification happening though
There is in New York, Brazil, and probably other places too. Attestation is a foot in the door and will become verification when it is shown to be ineffective. And unless the law is defeated, it will provide precedent for further legislative intrusion into personal computing.
Re: Store birth date in systemd for age verification
#28Tangentially related, but does anyone know what Poettering's "cryptographically verifiable integrity" endeavor[0] is about yet? [0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46784572
Probably what it says on the tin, TBH. If you hold the keys, it can strengthen security a lot.
Re: Store birth date in systemd for age verification
#29I don't mean to come across as a snob, or anything like that, but I find this PR really odd. It's the authors first time contributing to this repo and it the feedback on the PR that was addressed is really odd, like some of it is super basic stuff, even if you're not familiar with the code base or the language. Just an all round weird vibe.
> “The clang-tidy test failures appear to be pre-existing and don't seem to be related to my code”
I’ve seen Claude reproduce nearly identical comments, wonder if that’s a couidence
Re: Store birth date in systemd for age verification
#30The context is that this is in response to California in the US potentially passing a law that requires age verification on the operating system level.
there is no verification happening though
Because systemd isn’t an operating system. It’s just providing a mechanism for the OS to store/lookup the user’s birthday. It’s up to individual distros to do the verification (should the law stand and OS vendors choose to comply)