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- cross-posted to:
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Some of you need to watch this video, and hang your head in shame.
Dylan Taylor has been receiving constant harassment, including threats to his life and safety, for actions done collectively by SystemD. The article by Sam Bent was explictly mentioned as part of the harassment campaign, and rightfully so.
I don’t think enough people realize that this is catastrophically bad. It’ll discourage people from becoming open source developers, it’ll discourage people from using Linux, and it’ll discourage legislators from taking the Linux community seriously.
If you ever wished ill upon another human being for complying with a relatively inconsequential law, you are better off never touching a computer again. The Linux community has collectively gone so far beyond what is acceptable here.
Except this field has been implemented explicitly for this age verification laws. If this was for some random birthday greeting when you open terminal, i think fewer people would be up in arms. context is everything.
if this moron implements compliance with laws that record a birthday today, what is stopping him adding 3rd party verification of id tomorrow? So far his track record is corlortate bootlicker. You cannot trust projects where this guy is a contributer to
The pull request approval process? It’s quite easy to recognize that one change is harmless and another is not. The slope is not THAT slippery.
I completely understand objecting to the systemd change, I also object, but acting like the fascists have already won is a bit crazy.
No, let’s wait till we’re at the bottom of the slope. Then start objecting.
As I said, I also object, but you have to realize you’re literally just doing the slippery slope meme unironically. The part that makes it a fallacy is the unjustified assertion that more egregious changes are the inevitable result of the first one, except the first one is materially harmless and in line with existing PII fields in userdb. It’s completely reasonable to expect systemd to go no further than it already has.
It is slippery, I have described the process UK is taken here https://piefed.social/comment/10693725
Age verification laws: slippery slope. Sure. I agree.
Adding optional age field to systemd userdb: not slippery. Systemd isn’t being weaponized as an age verification suite. It’s just not happening.
it would be very interesting to see that attempt
but Poettering has already said that functionality doesn’t belong in systemd so I’m not sure where anyone would raise such a PR
seems like an Ubuntu/RedHat level distribution design to pull in a brand new age-verification / mass-surveillance component, or maybe modify an existing telemetry component
the birth date field only made it into systemd because it’s user metadata that is consistent with what is already stored there, whereas surveillance does not
for now, at least
again, I’d be very interested to see what happens with follow-up PRs
Poettering closed the pr that was reverting this age field. What happens is adding more and more control in the future to conform to whatever idiotic laws someone might make. Should we then also implement a filter for what you type online to conform with Russian law about calling their war “SVO”? Its their law after all, so why not make the rest of the world conform? Its already years older then this age verification?
Slippery slope
Also?
There is no filter here so the comparison isn’t valid.
If we’re just playing hypotheticals, turn the situation around. What if some Russian state program was required to run on every machine and if it detected people not in compliance with the law it updated their location field to say ‘jail’. Should we then remove the location field?
According to the guy doing birth date pr, we should pre-emptively comply, so yeah… how about enforcing bans on promotion of LGBT propaganda that has been law in Russia since 2013? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBTQ_rights_in_Russia#National_laws
Oh I know, lets introduce a field that stores an array of your nationalities, so any app developer can request your nationalities and adequately fine you for spreading illegal content online if you are Russian citizen. After all you can do that using a linux machine, so we gotta identify this now too. And the law also applies to foreigners. This law has been in place far longer than California or BR one. Who gets to pick and mix which laws apply and which don’t? But wait its okay its just an optional array, you don’t have to use it…
Do you now see how insanely dumb this is? I am neither in Russia or USA, why should I have to put up with a censoring mechanism?
In this hypothetical situation, why are you choosing to install software that does this? This software could just as easily store the data in a flat text file in your .config directory, it doesn’t need systemd in order to exist. Systemd choosing to not add those fields would not prevent the software from existing.
In any hypothetical situation where you’re forced to use some hypothetical privacy invading software, that software would still be able to do everything exactly the same even if it has to store your information outside of systemd.
Not having a field in systemd doesn’t mean that the data can’t be stored, it just means that the data has to be stored in a text file instead.
Systemd also has fields to store your realName and location. That same hypothetical situation applies to that data too. Your REAL NAME gives much more information about you than your birthDate and the location field is big enough to store your exact GPS coordinates. Like birthDate, these fields are not a problem (they’ve existed since the 60s) if you don’t install software that uses them.
If you don’t want software that tracks your location, don’t install software that tracks your location. If you don’t want software that requires your real name, then don’t install software that requires your real name.
If you don’t want software that requires your birthDate for age verification, then don’t install software that requires your birthDate for age verification.
Its not a hypothetical situation, it is happening, although right now to mobile phones and tablets if we stick with Russia example. Il let you envision what direction this is going to. But hey its a law. There are linux tablets out there, should maybe they add this pre-installed app?
https://brusselssignal.eu/2025/08/russia-orders-pre-installed-app-on-all-domestic-mobile-phones-and-tablets/
By the way that law is there since 2025. Its pretty obvious that we should pre-emptively comply?
That is my plan when we know the position of other distributions, I will be moving to one that does not use systemd. My argument with this is that the reasons for this change are clearly to comply with local laws that don’t affect majority of the system users. There is no need in this change to be global. It should not exist.
You haven’t shown how this would be prevented if systemd didn’t store birthDate.
You, and I, are no more affected by this field than we have been affected by the realName or location fields which have existed for decades. The field doesn’t do anything unless you choose to run software that uses it.
If you’re going to swap init systems because of this change then you understand my point about choice. If you think this field is bad, you can choose to not install systemd. If you use systemd and think the field is bad you can choose to not install software that uses the field.
I think the age verification laws are pointless and damaging, but systemd isn’t the battleground to fight that battle and, most importantly, people who are engaged in a harassment campaign against this developer are completely in the wrong.
rejecting the revert is completely separate from accepting additional age-check / mass-surveillance PRs, you know this and you are being willfully ignorant
I would be very upset and very surprised if hypothetical follow-up PRs were merged into systemd, and I’m betting they will be rejected
How is it different? The ready acceptance of additional fields specifically for age verification is clearly proof enough that any further bullshit will be accepted just as quickly. PR description clearly outlines it is for the sole purpose of age verification…
Whats wrong with Age verification? its fine to verify age, the problem with the age verification laws is the issue of how age is being verified. In this case its fine because its local first and privacy respecting.
Age verification requires doxxing yourself in order to actually work, and if it doesn’t require doxxing yourself then it won’t work and it can be bypassed, so pointless capitulation granting ease into more authoritarian forms in the future. You don’t see why any actually functional age verification is a problem while fascists are trying to control all the digital architecture?
No it doesnt. If I ask are you 18 and you reply no/yes that is verifying your age without doxing you. This field is for when the user is NOT admin on the machine. This field would be filled out by the parent when they’re setting up their kids machine.
Like I said, any actually FUNCTIONAL age verification. Your example verifies absolutely nothing.
What is the point of a field like this if you can literally put anything in it you want? Your not verifying anything. The next logical step is to add proof.
That isn’t the next logical step for systemd, which is what this post is about.
The reason systemd stores this information is that systemd stores user information and this is user information.
If some future application comes along that wants to require age verification and use that field to store the data, then you can simply choose to not install it. Problem solved.
Removing birthDate doesn’t stop these programs from existing. If there isn’t a birthDate field then they can simply decide that they’re going to store the birthdate in the user’s ‘location’ field instead and it would work perfectly fine. Are you going to remove the location field too? All of the text fields?
Adding a specific birthDate field is simply recognizing that this software exists (which, it does) and that systemd is the logical place to store user metadata (which it is).
If you don’t like the software that will do age verification then don’t install that software.
Its not suitable for proving your age. Its adding a field which is a stepping stone to future gating and more control over something that isn’t even applicable to most of the users of the system.
Why not then add a live filter to ensure that you don’t call Putler’s war in Ukraine and call it “SVO” as you are supposed to? Its the law over there and many years older than this one. People already have gone to prison for not complying with it. But hey lets make that a part of linux too. Its law after all… Do you see how stupid it is to blindly comply to something that doesn’t even apply to you?
How is it not suitable? If I setup my kids age and an app wants to use the portal to check if he is over 18 and it returns no. That suitable age verification and its privacy respecting. Which is what is being suggested.
There are already parental control packages exist in the Linux infrastructure which are not tied to low level modules such as systemd https://github.com/biglinux/big-parental-controls if you want, you can install it. Its fork is available in the Arch ecosystem for example that mentions it complies with the BR implementation (https://github.com/jersobh/arch-parental-controls)
Why do I need MORE parental controls shoved down my throat when I do not desire it nor wish for it? But this time in a core component of alot of linux distributions.
Oh and before you tell me “but ExoticCherryPigeon, its an optional field”, sure, but here is the example of the slippery slope curtsey of UK:
Take a look at the history of this act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Online_age_verification_in_the_United_Kingdom
We are now at the point where I need to use a CC to tell some 3rd party that I want a wank.
And what else is happening now? They are suing websites not based in UK! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Online_Safety_Act_2023#Enforcement, but that’s not all, although not at the law stage, there are some talks about also now restricting VPN’s https://www.techradar.com/vpn/vpn-privacy-security/uk-government-says-it-may-age-restrict-or-limit-childrens-vpn-use-following-new-consultation.
A lot of websites also not based in UK jurisdiction have simply self censored UK users before they get ISP level blocked.
If this is not an example of a slippery slope, I don’t know what is!
TL;DR tools already exist, we do not need more tools that will be a privacy nightmare
You don’t and you don’t have any parental controls being shoved down your throat, you have a JSON field that you can choose to enter data in or not. It does not control anything, it is not validated by anything (outside of compliance with ISO 8601) and it is not required to be set to anything.
Who controls what is installed on your system? If it is you, then you can save yourself from parental control software by not installing parental control software.
So when application developer such as Discord (an example) builds on top of these age controls and decides to not allow access to channels which are marked 13+?
What do you expect will happen?
I expect that they will store your birthDate in their own way and not use systemd as they are not a Linux native application.
You get to choose if you install Discord and you get to choose if you are going to submit to their age verification.
This is true if the birthDate field exists in systemd or not.
They DO have a linux native client though, and the whole idea of using systemd according to the PR author IS because application developers can then request this information from user profile
https://github.com/systemd/systemd/pull/40954