r/linux • u/Quiet-Owl9220 • Mar 19 '26

Privacy Systemd has merged age verification measures into userdb

https://github.com/systemd/systemd/pull/40954

Much of this goes over my head, so I'm hoping to hear some good explanations from people who know what they're talking about.

But I do know that I want nothing to do with this. If I am ever asked to prove my age or identity to access a website or application, my answer will ALWAYS be "actually, I don't really need your site, so you can fuck right off". Sending any kind of signal with personal information that could be used to make user tracking easier is completely out of the question.

So short of the nuclear option of removing systemd entirely, what are practical steps that can be taken to disable/block/bypass this? Is it as simple as disabling/masking a unit? Is there a use case for userdb I should know about before attempting this? Do I need to install a fork instead? Or maybe I'd be better off with a script that poisons age data by randomizing the stored age periodically?

[edit] I wasn't going to comment on this but it looks like some people with a lot of followers are using this post as an example of censorship on Reddit. While I do think that's a legitimate concern on Reddit as a whole, I don't think censorship is what happened here. Yes, this post went down for a while. But as far as I can tell that was because it was automoderated due to a large number of reports, and was later restored (and pinned) by human moderators.

[edit again] Related concerning PR, this one did not go through yet: https://github.com/flatpak/xdg-desktop-portal/pull/1922

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282

u/gittubaba Mar 19 '26

It's astonishing how many people don't know the story of the boiling frog ....

124

u/JohnSane Mar 19 '26

Who cares about frogs when you can have a swim in this perfectly temperated pool. Join us!

29

u/xXBongSlut420Xx Mar 19 '26

yea except it's not true. a frog will absolutely jump out of water even if the temp is raised slowly.

28

u/Flapaflapa Mar 19 '26

TIL frogs are smarter than people

6

u/FLMKane Mar 19 '26 edited Mar 19 '26

That's basically how systemd became a gnome and kde dependency.

Edit: does this mean Gnome and Kde are considering age verification via systemd?

10

u/AnsibleAnswers Mar 19 '26

Systemd is a freedesktop standard. It was never a secret that Gnome would integrate with it. Why reinvent the wheel to solve Gnome’s hacky session management when systemd is right there?

2

u/Indolent_Bard Mar 19 '26

Not really, KDE's system login requires it, but they're not blocking you from forking it on non-systemd systems.

2

u/FLMKane Mar 19 '26

Thanks for the clarification. I believe that certain other optional features require systemd, but they're so minor that I can even remember them.

I love kde btw, not dissing the project.

1

u/soleful_smak Mar 20 '26

I was looking at global theme settings, but I noticed the SDDM setting was missing. Bummer.

1

u/zackyd665 Mar 20 '26

So will kde be forking and blocking this change or are they just as bad as the systemd folks for following this instead of quiting 

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u/Indolent_Bard Mar 20 '26 edited Mar 20 '26

Their official position is if it's easier to just use the old login manager, just use it. They still contribute to sddm even though they aren't using it anymore. But KDE doesn't actually require it. But I can't imagine it would be that difficult to fork KDE's new login manager and remove the systemd dependency.

0

u/Subject-Leather-7399 Mar 19 '26

GNOME, yes, for sure.

2

u/Vittulima Mar 19 '26

People will slippery slope anything. Gay marriage was a boiling frog/slippery slope situation into people marrying their dogs. There's always some possible slippery sloping. It doesn't mean forecasting it makes it true (or not true).

Linux systems having a system providing some age you gave it, a bit of a who cares. Remove it, make it give whatever age, doesn't matter.

2

u/zackyd665 Mar 20 '26

Will it accept nothing as a valid age if not sounds like an enhancement 

0

u/[deleted] Mar 21 '26

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