My hate of SystemD is further justified! And you all just called me gray haired and not willing to update with the times!
Age checks creep into Linux as systemd gets a DOB field
Submitted 11 hours ago by throws_lemy@lemmy.nz to technology@lemmy.world
https://www.theregister.com/2026/03/24/foss_age_verification/
Comments
ramble81@lemmy.zip 27 minutes ago
RoddyStiggs@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 hours ago
My date of birth is FU/CK/YOU
Prox@lemmy.world 1 hour ago
YOU-FU-CK is the better format and this is not debatable.
Imgonnatrythis@sh.itjust.works 1 hour ago
FU/CK/YOOU
underisk@lemmy.ml 7 hours ago
An init system does not need to know my personal details; it’s for starting programs in a specific order just fuck off with this shit. You don’t even have to capitulate to this stuff and these freaks are out here doing it preemptively like they expect a fucking pat on the head for being first in line to dive tongue first on to that boot.
AcornTickler@sh.itjust.works 7 hours ago
Systemd isn’t an init system. Systemd-init is an init system and it is a part of the systemd suite.
underisk@lemmy.ml 7 hours ago
Whatever the fuck it is it doesn’t need to know how old I am to do its job.
cmnybo@discuss.tchncs.de 11 hours ago
Everyone should set it to 1970-01-01.
LincolnsDogFido@lemmy.zip 42 minutes ago
My go to is usually 09/21/1978
Imgonnatrythis@sh.itjust.works 1 hour ago
In other news there has been a massive uptick in Boomers converting to Linux…
tidderuuf@lemmy.world 11 hours ago
Ive been born since 1900-01-01 for a long time now.
zerofk@lemmy.zip 6 hours ago
Most people are born on the same date their whole life.
BillibusMaximus@sh.itjust.works 11 hours ago
Me too!
Although someone (steam maybe? I don’t remember) updated their system and won’t take it anymore. So now it’s 1930-01-01.
You should try it. It’s like I’m 30 years younger!
raman_klogius@ani.social 10 hours ago
The tech nerds should be setting theirs to 1970-01-01 at 00:00 UTC.
BradleyUffner@lemmy.world 1 hour ago
[deleted]0x0@infosec.pub 52 minutes ago
Ex microslop employee and self appointed systemd emperor Lennart poettering decided to roll that back and proceed, he also banned all discussion about the issue on the projects github
Treczoks@lemmy.world 6 hours ago
It is just a field. What it contains, if anything at all, is irrelevant.
GreenBeanMachine@lemmy.world 3 hours ago
This is step 1.
Final step: Scan your passport to verify and populate the date of birth field.
xcel@lemmy.world 5 hours ago
Every step towards making people feel at ease giving personal information away, makes the next one easier.
merde@sh.itjust.works 11 hours ago
The contents of the field will be protected from modification except by users with root privileges.
sudo my age to a thousand years then; no, thank you very very much
NarrativeBear@lemmy.world 11 hours ago
No thanks, not the distro I will be using.
rockSlayer@lemmy.blahaj.zone 11 hours ago
Systemd isn’t a distro, it’s an init and bootstrapper that underlies several distros
texture@lemmy.world 10 hours ago
they easily might have meant that the distro they will be using has declared they will not implement this
RIotingPacifist@lemmy.world 11 hours ago
If the hyperventilators could read that would be a very good point.
cyberpunk007@lemmy.ca 7 hours ago
1930-01-01, done. But this shouldn’t be a requirement to begin with either.
mech@feddit.org 7 hours ago
I’m a Debian guy so I’ll set mine to April 28, 1973.
mechoman444@lemmy.world 48 minutes ago
This is getting blown way out of proportion.
What’s being described right now is just an optional date-of-birth field. It doesn’t block installation, it doesn’t require verification, and it doesn’t change how the OS actually works. It just exists, and you can ignore it entirely.
The leap to “this is step one toward needing a passport to install an OS” is a classic slippery slope. It jumps from a harmless, non-enforced field straight to full identity verification with no actual mechanism connecting the two.
More importantly, this ignores how Linux works at a fundamental level.
Linux is open source, which means the code is public and can be modified by anyone. If any distribution ever tried to enforce something invasive like identity checks, that code would be stripped out almost immediately and redistributed as a fork. People already fork distributions over far smaller disagreements than this, and users would migrate just as quickly.
For this scenario people are worried about to actually happen, the entire ecosystem would have to move in lockstep and the community would have to abandon one of its core principles overnight. That’s not a realistic outcome.
Being skeptical of regulation is reasonable. Treating this like the beginning of mandatory identity verification at the OS level, especially in the Linux world, just isn’t grounded in how the technology or the community actually operates.