31–40 of 77 posts
systemd also stores the real name of the user using this computer in the same user record. Why not remove that as well, as it could uniquely identify the user of the computer? Or the uuid field...
Because this is a reactionary political statement and not a well thought out privacy project
Here is the changes: https://github.com/systemd/systemd/commit/71ad73569d9a5e2588...
Wow. Literally right next to the birthday field, which is apparently a gateway to mass surveillance, is physical location, which is apparently not?
The birthdate doesn't actually get sent anywhere, right? Why would adding a field for a birthdate be "mass surveillance" anymore than having fields for email, full name, etc.?
Because it's the first step. “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.
As i get old i get more and more annoyed and this useless armchair activism. 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.
This project everyone is laughing at actually accomplished what was probably it's only goal. I was alerted to proof of systemd's priorities. I mean I already knew but nothing beats a good solid action when it comes to trying to say it to anyone else.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
So that's also for email address, username, right?
I believe Debian doesn't ask for a e-mail address on installation, but the username is obviously necessary if you're going to login. I leave "Users full name" empty and it's fine. 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
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Wow. Literally right next to the birthday field, which is apparently a gateway to mass surveillance, is physical location, which is apparently not?
Why not just add national ID number then? Surely that won’t be a problem either?
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.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I believe Debian doesn't ask for a e-mail address on installation, but the username is obviously necessary if you're going to login. I leave "Users full name" empty and it's fine. 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.
> I leave "Users full name" empty and it's fine. 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.
The other day someone commented on this site that in the age of agentic coding "maintaining a fork is really not that serious of and endeavor anymore." and that's probably the case. I'm sure continuously rebasing "revert birthday field" can be fully automated. Then the only thing remaining is convincing a critical mass that development now happens over at `Jeffrey-Sardina/systemd` on GitHub.
This project everyone is laughing at actually accomplished what was probably it's only goal. I was alerted to proof of systemd's priorities. I mean I already knew but nothing beats a good solid action when it comes to trying to say it to anyone else.
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.