FUCK THERE IS A WHOLE LOT OF STUPID USING LINUX
we wanted the year of the linux desktop… well the first raft of windows refugees seem to be a bunch of these privacy types who think they’re now a bunch of 1337 h4x0rs because they figured out how to get an nvidia driver working on mint… they have more paranoia than actual knowledge, and their only contribution to the community is sowing disseny, and shouting about something as trivial as an optional data field.
The debian subreddit is actually DOWNVOTING an actual debian developer when they tried to explain the situation
If i put on my tin foil hat, i’d say these people are being deliberately influenced to sow chaos in foss communities
Fjdybank@lemmy.ca 3 weeks ago
Hard disagree. This represents the pot getting turned up on the frog.
I acknowledge you are factually correct. However, once this field exists, it enables later reference and/or mandatory dependencies.
There is no positive use case , but lots of possibly negative use cases. For that reason, it shouldn’t exist.
cmhe@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
You do know that this is a slippery slope argument, right?
You would have to demonstrate that there is an intention there to require third party services to validate the age of users using Linux… Or that there is an intention to do so by systemd and the broader open source developers.
I don’t think it will be easily possible to lock out every Linux system from the internet that doesn’t implement some kind of hardware DRM mechanism to make sure that the user cannot just change the date of birth with root permissions.
Fjdybank@lemmy.ca 3 weeks ago
I do understand that, but I think you are applying a post hoc rationalisation to the change. For example, examining the change through the lens of intended use - you can’t - there is no such use of the field today - it’s tomorrow’s use that is potentially problematic. I don’t want to wait until a bad actor applies the field, I want to stop the field from existing.
This change is not happening in isolation. There is currently a general trend towards de-anonymising users, and this DOB field is a step in that direction.
The only real question is, do I want my computer storing more, or less, personally identifying information. Given that I don’t trust the intended use, or ANY use which is later enabled by this, my answer is ‘less’.
cmhe@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Maybe this is the issue. I have no problems with parents setting the age of the children in their account in order limit their access to certain content.
And there clearly exists a use-case for that.
My main issue is when it comes to third-party age/identity verification services. Centralized age or identity verification is bad.
I’d rather give parents the tools to set individual restrictions locally on their devices, then pushing for a global internet based age filter.
Senal@programming.dev 3 weeks ago
Actually no, they don’t.
You , as the party making the accusation of fallacy would be required to prove that the expectation of escalation is unreasonable or that the intention was not there.
cmhe@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Why do people so often invert the burden of proof?
If someone says “Picking your nose will cause brain-cancer in 40 years.” Then they have the burden to proof that. Nobody has the burden to disprove that.
They made the accusation that this is a step to make this age fields mandatory, and controlled by third-party age verification services, so they have the burden to proof that there is way to do that.
I find it highly unlikely, because most people using Linux systems at home have admin privileges. Which makes this whole point moot, since they can fake whatever they like to the software running on top.
iglou@programming.dev 3 weeks ago
Do you really draw the line at a date of birth field, when every linux system has fields for full name and address for every user account?
Fjdybank@lemmy.ca 3 weeks ago
This change is not happening in isolation. There is currently a general trend towards de-anonymising users, and this DOB field is a step in that direction.
The only real question is, do I want my computer storing more, or less, personally identifying information. Given that I don’t trust ANY use which may be later enabled by this change, my answer is ‘less’.
iglou@programming.dev 3 weeks ago
Does this systemd change facilitate future verification softwares? Definitely. Will it become a part of systemd? Extremely unlikely. Should systemd rebel and refuse to include anything facilitating these disturbing laws? Eh, probably.
But let’s not blow this change out of proportions. This is a way for systemd to not aggressively fight the laws, without enabling them either. This field changes nothing, and you will still be able to use distros that don’t even employ the field at all. They might become illegal to use in the land of the free, but that’s a separate issue that this change does not impact.
goldman60@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
I’m not really sure you can argue birthdate is the thin edge of the spear when the standard Linux user database already had fields for location, email, phone number, and real name. None of which have been used for anything up to this point, and systemd-homed is not as widely used.
Fjdybank@lemmy.ca 3 weeks ago
I get it, but I believe it to be a false equivalence. This change is not happening in isolation. There is currently a general trend towards de-anonymising users, and this DOB field is a step in that direction.
The only real question is, do I want my computer storing more, or less, personally identifying information. Given that I don’t trust the intended use, or ANY use which is later enabled by this, my answer is ‘less’.
goldman60@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
I conceptually agree with your second paragraph but I fail to see how the existing unused fields are somehow less dangerous or a “false equivalence” to a new unused DOB field which is significantly harder to use to deanonymize someone than their name, address, and phone number.
Alaknar@sopuli.xyz 3 weeks ago
Yeah, this is a devious plan that has been going on for years, when they added the
realNamefield!Fjdybank@lemmy.ca 3 weeks ago
I get it, but I believe it to be a false equivalence. This change is not happening in isolation. There is currently a general trend towards de-anonymising users, and this DOB field is a step in that direction.
The only real question is, do I want my computer storing more, or less, personally identifying information. Given that I don’t trust the intended use, or ANY use which is later enabled by this, my answer is ‘less’.
Alaknar@sopuli.xyz 3 weeks ago
So, how about we start freaking out when someone starts making these fields required, instead of right away?
dubyakay@lemmy.ca 3 weeks ago
We are more than mere frogs in a pot though. We have made note of this. We outraged. We argued and counter argued. We will not forget so easily, no matter the view point on it.
If nothing comes of it, some of us can say “I’ve told you…”
If the next step gets implemented and the field becomes mandatory, some of us can say “See!! Froggies”
If it becomes mandatory and a further implementation also adds the framework to submit the data to some idp service, then we can get the pitchforks out.
zbyte64@awful.systems 3 weeks ago
This is why we should lock down the OS to prevent people from creating databases of people. There are so many applications out there asking for people’s DOB and that’s because we let people just install whatever app they want.
Tarambor@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
So why do you not have any problem with the RealName and Email fields in systemd?
Fjdybank@lemmy.ca 3 weeks ago
please refer to my response
UltraBlack@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
How do commercial distros prevent getting blocked if not through this?
Fjdybank@lemmy.ca 3 weeks ago
I think you might be replying to wrong conment
UltraBlack@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Nope