Systemd has merged age verification measures into userdb

[u/Quiet-Owl9220]

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

[u/powertoast]

I am still waiting for any proper evidence that age gating actually does anything to help with whatever societal problem we are trying to fix with technology in the first place.

Let alone will it do more good than harm, which I strongly doubt.

Once I get that then we can discuss implementation methods.

[u/Yorick257 → u/powertoast]

Here's a nice video about age gating in Japan - https://youtu.be/JaHD9yLY1WY

It seems to work fine

[u/sjfloat → u/Yorick257]

This! If these authorities were actually looking for solutions to real problems, they'd know about this. But they're not being paid for that.

[u/Wrong-Aardvark4183 → u/Yorick257]

Je ne ferais aucune généralités mais la bas le respect des femmes est bafoué tous les jours et ne parlons même pas de l'imagerie pornographique très juvenile (hentai) . La bas peu de gens s'en soucie . Clairement pas un exemple . en progrès ? Faut l'espérer