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Age verification on Systemd and Flatpak

cybrkyd.com

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Re: Age verification on Systemd and Flatpak

#3
This is a no win situation and I think systemd is making this change too early. But I have read that field is optional.

But my main concern with this is applications like Firefox will eventually require this systemd age specific field and a standard systemd function to call. That means this age field will need to be populated and thus locking out the *BSDs and non-systemd Linux.

If that happens, this makes the systemd critics 100% right, systemd is being forced upon all distros by various upstream applocations.

Re: Age verification on Systemd and Flatpak

#4
post #3

This is a no win situation and I think systemd is making this change too early. But I have read that field is optional. But my main concern with this is applications like Firefox will eventually require this systemd age specific field and a standard systemd function to call. That means this age field will need to be populated and thus locking out the *BSDs and non-systemd Linux. If that happens, this makes the system…

My gaming machines that I do not browse the web with have systemd (CachyOS) but my daily drivers do not. Should a website lock me out because I don't have some age API then in my view the problem has solved itself. The website has effectively blocked itself without me having to given the one and only correct way to age gate a site in my view is with the RTA header [1] that would trigger parental controls if optionally enabled on ones device. Every other path that involves exchanging data whether verified or not, anonymized or not can only lead to future evil shenanigans.

[1] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46152074

Re: Age verification on Systemd and Flatpak

#5
post #3

This is a no win situation and I think systemd is making this change too early. But I have read that field is optional. But my main concern with this is applications like Firefox will eventually require this systemd age specific field and a standard systemd function to call. That means this age field will need to be populated and thus locking out the *BSDs and non-systemd Linux. If that happens, this makes the system…

>But my main concern with this is applications like Firefox will eventually require this systemd age specific field and a standard systemd function to call. That means this age field will need to be populated and this locking out the *BSDs and non-systemd Linux.

The risk is real, and the solution is to move away from systemd now, not wait until it's too late. Whatever conveniences it brings over other init systems are certainly not enough to justify giving up online anonymity forever.

Re: Age verification on Systemd and Flatpak

#6
It's interesting that the package managers become choke points that can be used for government overreach. Luckily Linux is open source so I expect there will be options that just don't do this from principle.

Otherwise my Intel NUC server with Debian is 2 years old, so I expect the honest age would be 2 years? I may have parts for some old PCs to put together that could get adult software I guess...

Re: Age verification on Systemd and Flatpak

#7
It seems incredibly silly to me that this is being rushed into systemd and other linux components. I understand Apple making changes, and even Canonical, but systemd is not run by one corporation and there is no reason to adhere to a badly written law. Why play along with the charade? If root is root, the "age verification" field does not make any sense.

Why are these changes being made on a worldwide basis when the laws that have been introduced are a relatively small fraction of the world? California isn't going to go after individual systemd maintainers. Will California go after Torvalds? I doubt it. Apple? Surely, but this is, quite frankly, a ridiculous thing to even suggest for inclusion into these setups.

Re: Age verification on Systemd and Flatpak

#8
> Will my system believe me? And how about their system, whoever “they” are? If not, then what else will I need to do to prove my birth date and age? Who will check if root can’t be trusted? How will they check?

If they ever seize your computer, they can probably also tack on computer fraud charges

Re: Age verification on Systemd and Flatpak

#9
OP is certainly right that a lot of this legislation is written in ways that are hard to interpret and that often seem like they would have undesirable side effects even under the assumption that the basic idea is good (whether that's actually true is a whole different question).

In the specific case of CA AB1043: (1) Systems are required to ask the user for their age and just trust whatever they say (2) Applications are required to query the system for the user's age range. Other enacted and proposed device-based age assurance mandates have different properties.

This post goes into quite a bit of detail about the various points of concern: https://educatedguesswork.org/posts/device-based-age-assuran...

Re: Age verification on Systemd and Flatpak

#10
post #7

It seems incredibly silly to me that this is being rushed into systemd and other linux components. I understand Apple making changes, and even Canonical, but systemd is not run by one corporation and there is no reason to adhere to a badly written law. Why play along with the charade? If root is root, the "age verification" field does not make any sense. Why are these changes being made on a worldwide basis when the…

> systemd is not run by one corporation

Two corporations, e.g. Canonical and Red Hat, might suffice.

I hope everybody remembers how systemd was thrust upon the community by having Gnome largely depend on it. This was mostly done by efforts of Red Hat, and that sufficed.

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