Stores the user's birth date for age verification, as required by recent laws in California (AB-1043), Colorado (SB26-051), Brazil (Lei 15.211/2025), etc. userdb: add birthDate field to JSON user records https://github.com/systemd/systemd/pull/40954

[kb3@mastodon.social]

@koree @nixCraft Our legislature in Alabama just passed one. Hoping it will be found unconstitutional, but our elderly governor's mission is to make Alabama the most conservative state in the US (her own words) so lawmakers are banning stuff and regulating behavior left and right. A little scary how quickly other states are jumping on board with this garbage.

[wxq4987@infosec.exchange]

@nixCraft while the world freaks out this is getting baked in at the OS level, the marketing world is salivating over the fact that every single website on the planet with any form of monetization or advertisement baked in will start hammering this API and tying it set cookies for better retargeting and demographic analysis.

[paul_ipv6@infosec.exchange]

@nixCraft

yup. meta want identity verification for PII collection. nothing to do with protecting kid.

[edcates@mastodon.social]

@echopapa @nixCraft "It's easy bro, it's not on us anyway, bro. If you're worried just fix your stack, bro. We're just the portal, bro."

[ferricoxide@blahaj.zone]

@nixCraft@mastodon.social

…so they don't have to implement it within their own apps…

You underestimate the appeal of forcing would-be marketing-targets reveal even more about themselves. I mean, age-group is a really useful marketing-target.

[via4@mastodon.social]

@nixCraft big companies use malicious compliance in such cases. We, on the other hand, are not pathetic cowards, our response should be direct demonstrative civil disobedience, like ageless Linux does. Parasites who pass such bs into laws should be pushed back and eventually held accountable

[tezoatlipoca@mas.to]

@nazokiyoubinbou @nixCraft

> Chances are we're all just going to end up being illegal rebels using an OS that is an OS

I am ok with this, even if it means (as I suspect it will) we spend too much effort in a battle between our devices/clients and SaaS/platform providers where we constantly break/fool mandated user verification and DRMs, they come up with new ones etc.

All this age verification is gonna do is build a tech.smarter generation who is more confortable getting dity in the bits.

[alanbuxey@freeradical.zone]

@nixCraft why the hell is a tool for managing system processes and handling services needing to care about DoB of user accounts? That should be in user admin or PAM space. Even if its to control whether a service could be run - it should call out to other functions and not capture such data itself.

[nazokiyoubinbou@urusai.social]

@tezoatlipoca @nixCraft What concerns me is it's going to be a hard fight. For example, if they start locking bootloaders even on PCs... A basic framework for this is already in place (see things like Chromebooks.)

People these days don't seem to be as willing to try or learn new things either. Plus they have done a darned good job of convincing the average person that they are terrified of installing a third party OS because... I don't even think they actually know why. Just that they are...

Heck, if ChatGPT won't tell people how to install a "rogue linux" I suspect people in the future just won't do it

With the way people are now I worry very much that if this succeeds it will just create a system where people tolerate things being more and more locked down instead of breaking it

[staticnoisexyz@infosec.exchange]

@nixCraft Y'all aware that systemd isn't forcing anyone to use systemd-userdb nor fill this record with any data?

[intrepidhero@vmst.io]

@nixCraft is amazing how many users were born on January 1st, 1970.

[thatdnaguy@genomic.social]

@nixCraft nail on the head: it shouldn't. Full stop. Don't add this dreck to the OS. "Can't use this distribution in X, Y, and Z." Done.

[shac@ioc.exchange]

@nixCraft We are much better off having OS vendors provide age verification than having every app do it. They would all outsource it to Meta or someone similar. We would end up having to maintain accounts with the verifier, giving them all the data, and depending on them to use our apps.

[cmdrmoto@hachyderm.io]

@nixCraft https://hachyderm.io/@cmdrmoto/116251690250028941

[distrowatch@mastodon.social]

@nixCraft "Why systemd is dealing with age verification stuff?"

systemd wants this deal with everything. No surprise they want to be part of the "solution" to this user privacy nightmare.

[ralen@social.ralen.top]

@nixCraft as everyone is hating systemd already, they implement this unpopular "feature" so other projects wouldnt spoil their reputation

[mooie@meow.social]

@nixCraft Now I'm only waiting for jurisdictions which prohibit storing such information and OSes must guarantee they can't!

[tootpaste@social.tchncs.de]

@nixCraft 01.01.1970, what else?

[paoloredaelli@mastodon.uno]

@nixCraft
I will promptly apply any patch that disable it!