The Engineer Who Tried to Put Age Verification Into Linux

[irom@social.tchncs.de]

@julesbl @mcv
Another problem is that it starts implementing surveillance infrastructure without any pushback. Looking at many governments now I don't think that's advisable.

The law was lobbied into existence by Facebook/Meta and friends.

Blocked

(old.reddit.com)

Age Verification Lobbying: Dark Money, Model Legislation & Institutional Capture

Investigative research into age verification lobbying, dark money, and model legislation

The TBOTE Project (tboteproject.com)

@Khrys

[mcv@friendica.opensocial.space]

@julesbl @Khrys

We've long depended on software maintained by fewer people than that.

The point is: anyone can contribute, committers review and approve. If that has always been a reasonable process, why not now? There are lots of open source projects where the creator of the project has more power than that, and we've always accepted it because we trust the maintainers, and when they break that trust, the community forks, which has also happened plenty of times.

But at the end of the day, it seems to me most people here are irrationally panicking about this. Isn't the field optional? Isn't what goes in the field entirely under the user's control?

By all means discuss this honestly, but I don't see anything here that justifies the hype and panic.

[julesbl@mastodon.me.uk]

@mcv @Khrys
If you think this is just like a bug, you are mistaken

[wrybane@wizzards.club]

@Khrys I don't get it, there are alread fields for location and real name and I never put any real info their either, this is no different, an arbitrary field people don't need to use... And systemd isn't going to verify it either, is it?

[bloognoo@retro.pizza]

@Khrys
'He read the law, took it at face value, and started writing code. The word for what that is sits somewhere past malice, something more insidious: an engineer who treats compliance as engineering, who sees a legal requirement the way he sees a technical specification, and will implement whatever the spec says regardless of who wrote the spec or why.'

Zealot. The word is Zealot. His god spoke and he responded.

[peterkratz@chaos.social]

@Khrys Your linux bootloader in 2026: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G3gFn5s6-iI ... and then you have to press ALT+X to continue.

[foxes@bark.lgbt]

@fazalmajid @Khrys You mean the very same Poettering which was responsible for this commit https://github.com/systemd/systemd/commit/bb19b6104978b5ede792fa3f0cfc74272f20bf9c which was "Found with Claude Code Review" and it broke systemd-boot in one of the release candidates (260 RC3) https://github.com/systemd/systemd/issues/41098

"Anything LLM-generated will not be committed without a thorough human review" in practice. Yeah.

[mndflayr@metalhead.club]

@Khrys

So, tl;dr, someone added an age field, and the trolls went crazy?
And now everybody hates everybody, and each side is calling the other one "zealot" with religious fervor?

Just another day in toxicland, I guess.

[fazalmajid@social.vivaldi.net]

@foxes @Khrys Well, yes. We've known since the days of PulseAudio he is a moron with abysmal judgment and worse code quality, to the point he is regularly called out by Linus Torvalds for it.

[aaribaud@mastodon.art]

@CypherSephiroth Si par "les deux prémisses" tu entends l'angle de l'article et celui de mon commentaire, alors je renouvelle ma réponse : je ne vois pas la raison pour laquelle ils devraient avoir un rapport à part le fait de porter sur le même objet.

[kkarhan@infosec.space]

@Khrys cyberfascism at play..

Kevin Karhan :verified: (@kkarhan@infosec.space)

@bazkie@beige.party the problem isn't #SystemD but #Cyberfascism and #Bootlickers. - I'll *refuse to comply* with any *"#AgeVerification"* demands in @OS1337 as a matter of principle, just like I'll bever comply with cyberfascist demands by #Roskomnadzor or any other bs. - Be [angry at the right people:](https://mamot.fr/@Khrys/116265905987693759) The #TechIlliterates demanding such #fasist bullshit and those that are deepthroating their boots!

Infosec.Space (infosec.space)

[joschi@hachyderm.io]

@Khrys @nblr @doingfedtime What kind of bullshit hit piece is this?

We’re now blaming developers for contributing to FOSS projects?

Great job everyone, you can be really proud of yourselves! /s

[eobet@oldbytes.space]

@Khrys is it just me or is the article a bit weird? Weird repetitions, weird (fully animated) graphics and a weird quiz at the end. It smells vaguely like slop, but is it?

[filippo@abyssdomain.expert]

@Khrys @thedarktangent what the actual fuck, you’re reposting and spreading an article that targets an open source maintainer by insulting him and making his picture into a wanted poster? Seriously?

[nblr@chaos.social]

@joschi @Khrys @doingfedtime
"Contributing"

[joschi@hachyderm.io]

@nblr @Khrys @doingfedtime Save the nitpicking. It is a contribution, just one you don’t like.

I’m not saying I’m thrilled about it either, but writing and promoting this hit piece is low. Very low…

[nblr@chaos.social]

@joschi
The article is as much about the multi-layer organisational failure as it is about the "contribution" - which indeed is not just one "I don't like". Please take your framing and go elsewhere. Thank you.

[joschi@hachyderm.io]

@nblr @Khrys @doingfedtime Yes, it's absolutely a well-founded article debating organizational failures in a complete impartial way.

That's why there's a fake image of the developer in which looks like he's getting a mugshot.

[rootwyrm@weird.autos]

@filippo @Khrys @thedarktangent know what would prevent this shit in the first place? If actively supporting fascism had consequences.

Meet consequences.

[nblr@chaos.social]

@joschi The style is debatable and it tastes a bit like someone drank a bit much of the generative kool-aid, but content-wise it does a good job in condensing the "why this is bad", how the chain is forged, from good intentions, in very understandable words.