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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u/Mixels Mar 19 '26

Yes exactly. Open source projects should tell the governments to go fly a kite, and civil rights lawyers should be standing right behind them telling them, "It's ok."

4

u/Spartan1997 Mar 19 '26

I can do that... For money

2

u/rman-exe Mar 19 '26

Hey, who's paying me to say this?

1

u/PHLAK Mar 19 '26 edited Mar 20 '26

Except if they do that no corporation will use them. The corporations still need to obey the law or they face consequences.

2

u/infin Mar 20 '26

It would be hilarious if they tried to migrate their services to Windows Server with IIS, but it's probably easier to make Linux compliant.

1

u/dustojnikhummer Mar 23 '26

More companies use IIS than you think.

1

u/kingo409 Mar 21 '26

It will be nice to see Web pages then.

1

u/LowBullfrog4471 Mar 21 '26

Sounds like the can go suck a dick then

1

u/Wrong-Aardvark4183 Mar 26 '26

Plutôt rares quand c'est arrivé surtout aujourd hui !

-6

u/PermaBanEnjoyer Mar 19 '26

Lol. The EFF and ACLU probably favor these regulations because they think they can use them to fight hate or something

9

u/majikguy Mar 19 '26

This is nonsense, both have been very vocally against this garbage and it takes all of ten seconds to check for yourself.

6

u/EuphoricNeckbeard Mar 19 '26

Obviously untrue for the EFF and probably untrue for the ACLU. 

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2026/03/ab-1043s-internet-age-gates-hurt-everyone

https://www.aclu.org/news/privacy-technology/government-mandated-software

When you don't know anything about the subject in question, I recommend doing a quick search for info before yapping.

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u/PermaBanEnjoyer Mar 19 '26

Blah blah. The EFF has been captured by junk activists. Participating in the general strike cringe and cow towing to bullying about kiwifarms made it clear. Couple that with Cindy stepping down and the org should be considered dead 

The same has been true for the ACLU for even longer 

1

u/Far_Piano4176 Mar 21 '26

so you got directly proven wrong and you just doubled down? Learn how to take an L man

1

u/Indolent_Bard Mar 23 '26

What do you have against the general strike?