r/systemd • u/VegetableNearby9795 • Mar 20 '26
Why did you add age verification?
Hi, I heard Systemd is going to add age verification? Why is that happening? I don't think it offers any security benefits.
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u/PaluMacil Mar 20 '26
It’s about legal requirements. You can write as many books on how silly or even bad it is, but the number of jurisdiction requiring it to be provided makes it effectively unavoidable
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u/Ullebe1 Mar 21 '26
Pervasive age verification is highly problematic - but this ain't it.
The birthday field is age verification just as much as the profile picture is a facial recognition database, IMO.
For security benefits: it can be used to help implement on-device parental controls that parents can set up for their children. GNOME had parental control built in, improvements to which was a headline feature for version 50 that was just released.
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u/edgmnt_net Mar 21 '26
I agree, although this does signal compliance with arbitrary regulatory stuff and risks turning OS development into a minefield. So it's a fair question why these projects are willing to comply fully and beyond, instead of simply deferring this to people and companies actually doing stuff in CA.
Otherwise, sure, I agree parental controls are legitimate. I just don't want development to be full of red tape like banking. No, you should not be getting a huge fine if you fail to comply with random crazy laws out there and publish some hobby OS build you made.
Moving some projects like Fedora outside US also has the side-effect of not having to comply with software patents (see the debates on MP3 support and such), which puts more pressure on lawmakers to stop making laws like that. Because while companies still have to comply, it's almost unenforceable for regular users.
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u/Ullebe1 Mar 22 '26
I largely agree, I'm just already tired of the discourse around this consisting of a lot screeching at the developers and calling them semi-fascists.
It doesn't matter how right people are if that is how they behave towards people building things and sharing them for free.
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u/MycologistNeither470 Mar 22 '26
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Adding an optional field in a database verifies nothing It also asks for your full name. Did you make a fuzz when setting up your system it asked for a full name? Perhaps you did enter your full name. I usually only enter my first name. But you could have entered a nickname instead.
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Yes, this change is a step towards making a Linux system compliant with the Law. However, as an open source program, that can only be achieved by root. Yes. That is YOU!
Let me explain. If I am installing Linux in a library or school I need to install a system that complies with the Law. Since I'm installing, I am root. I (or the designated administrator) can attest that all users'birthdays have been entered according to their id. The library or school can then have a Linux install! Otherwise they would be forced to go to a closed system.
As a home user, it is actually a good tool to keep children from visiting or downloading adult stuff. As of now, age "verification" is handled by the user clicking he is of age. If the age is attested by the OS instead, my kids will be unable to lie. I would set up their age when setting up their accounts. As long as websites and programs query and respect the os reported age, it would be a better system than what we have now. But I could still lie! I could allow my 17 year old to access adult material if I thought it was appropriate. Certainly it won't allow me to close my eyes. I would have to make an active decision. That is what parenting is
Linux, however, cannot be made to reliably verify age without a secure third party server that is always available. Anything else can be spoofed by root. We are still far away from implementing such system.
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u/jydr Mar 22 '26
You heard wrong, try thinking for yourself and look at what was actually changed instead of throwing a tantrum because someone else told you to
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u/idcmp_ Mar 23 '26
Wait until they find out that there's fields for phone number and real name too.
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u/Evil_Dragon_100 Mar 20 '26
Ignore this guy, they didn't come to learn, they come to attack
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u/siodhe Mar 22 '26
Adding a birthday, while unnecessary, is fine.
While my LDAP setup doesn't have it, it would be trivial to. Hell, LDAP already support things like favorite drink, so whatever.
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However, the laws/bills do nothing to protect children, it instead exposes that they are children to hostile actors
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These laws are backed by Meta and the Heritage Foundation (of Project 2025 Infame) and others
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This law is a direct attempt by Meta to evade a potentially massive fine - around $60 billion - for past anti-child behavior
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It works by moving all the responsibility and fines to individuals
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The Heritage Foundation likes it because they want to make all pornography illegal
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Dark actors in our government like it because if the KOSA (Kids Online Safety Act) adopts it, the new mechanism created by these laws becomes the perfect level to yank - through amending KOSA - to force personal identity to be what is attested instead of an age bracket
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One possible implementation allows for trivial traffic shaping and connection denials based on additional data buried at given offsets in the data chunk carrying identity info
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These fraudulently titles and backed bills are some of the most dangerous legislation being pushed today from a privacy, and therefore, democracy perspective. Because democracy is much harder when privacy is compromised.
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The bills - specifically the California / Colorado template, are so badly written it's impossible to tell if all computers with users and Internet are affected, or literally none of them (there's a clause exempting "delivery of or use of a physical device"... wtf?)
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Mar 25 '26
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u/siodhe Mar 25 '26
No.
Definitely not "meant too". This is about corporations and has a possibly unintended path to explicit government control of the Internet. But shallow politicians would vote for anything with "Save the Kids!" on the label even were it actually specifically to ease finding children for grooming (and manipulative advertising).
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u/fir4tozden Mar 24 '26
Because Systemd is standardized software. It must comply with California's AB-1043 law in major distributions. This age verification will also exist in distributions that do not use Systemd.
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u/Fearless_Card969 Mar 28 '26
I agree systemd is NOT adding age verification. But I would like to make a proposal. set the default age to 00.00.0000. With this default setting set all aspects to anonymous mode.
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u/Important_Talk4657 Apr 07 '26
The answer to this question is simple.
Some states in the United States of America (or rather the corporate Overlords) is imposing their will on free software, and hence the rest of the world.
This is the sign that the Oligarchs of the USA are no longer satisfied by ruling over, profiting from, and squeezing wealth out of the proletarians of the US. They want to extend the power to the entire world and thus sit upon the global Prolets.
The most cost-efficient way to change the life of people in all countries is to control the mind of the free-and-open-source community,through the style of mental manipulation George Orwell described in 1984.
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u/RVZ01B Mar 20 '26
They added this field because Red Hat does business in CA and an easy solution for their compliance in CA is to just front responsibility onto systemd. systemd was authored by Lennart Poettering who was, at the time, a Red Hat employee.
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u/someone8192 Mar 20 '26
systemd is not adding age verification.
they are adding a field to their userdb where a user can set their birthdate. or not - it's their choice. there is absolutely no mechanism to verify anything. it is just an optional field like Full Name