Peter Makholm

It saddenss me that people jump to implement infrastructure to support age verification in central parts of the Linux system.

It is just a field, they say.

Yes, but the field and the timing clearly points to a political agenda. The developers pushing these changed are either supporting this agenda or cowards.

Not sure what is worse.

But no matter you stand-point, be aware: This is political!

#AgeVerification #SystemD #Linux

Mar 22 at 5:10pmWeb
Show threadPeter MakholmMar 23

The #SystemD infrastructure and API's to support #AgeVerification is a GDPR disaster waiting to happen.

Moving fast and breaking stuff to support this agenda might make a default setup of Linux illegal in the EU.

Prove me wrong.

Show threadPeter MakholmMar 23

This is even without assuming malicious intend as in my previous post.

Systemd has no previous track record in handling this kind of information. They have made no reassurance that they understand these kinds of issues.

To them, it is just a field.

Show threadanparkerMar 23
@pmakholm I don't think they gonna handle it. Best guess, it will be just an API for programs to ask for verification. And then you will need a 'verification provider'. And suddenly bunch of 3rd parties will pop-up and offer those services.
Show threadPeter MakholmMar 23

Sidenote: OS level #AgeVerification only works if a third party can ensure that you are running a unmodified trusted operating system.

- No more compiling your own kernel.

- No more using third party kernel modules.

- No more hacking your own initrd.

- No more small distributions.

- And obviously no more fully controling which services #systemd starts.

Watch out for systemd to merge the infrastructure for an attestation system.

Show threadPoul-Henning KampMar 23

@pmakholm

Og det mindsker på ingen måde min konspirationsteori om, at SystemD er Microsofts snedige forsøg på at destruere Linux indefra 🙂

Kom til #FreeBSD, vi har ikke SystemD.

Show threadThomas Hansen 📝 🇩🇰Mar 23
@pmakholm I can't. I'm too old. I remember the Cold War and the time before the fall of the wall. And the stories that came out about the DDR and the Stasi after the fall of the wall and the reunification of Germany.
Show threadWooShellMar 23
@pmakholm Perhaps it is time to break up systemd into several more sensible parts, one being the init system that it was originally designed to be, and the other gobbled-up services separately.
"Do one thing, and do it right" wasn't just a marketing phrase of old, it's a mantra that developers should still stick to.
An init system handling PII of its users is a desaster waiting to happen.. because other than the UID and shell, a birthdate etc is significantly more important to secure.
Show threadsaahbsMar 22
@pmakholm they could also be useful goodie-rule-compliant idiots.
Show threadDrew MochakMar 23
@pmakholm It's pretty funny to me how quickly these people are willing to jump and twirl for Palantir like trained seals, but will also not lift a finger to fix longstanding accessibility problems. What we gotta do to get some grease already?
Show threadDrew MochakMar 23

@pmakholm now, one might wonder, "but what accessibility problems could there possibly be in systemD?" Well, a five second Google search returns a feature request for high contrast themes in the boot menu, so people can read it.
https://github.com/systemd/systemd/issues/37898

The last comment is from last summer, it has no assignee, milestone nor associated pull request.

For example.

Accessibility Support for boot menu · Issue #37898 · systemd/systemd

Component systemd-boot Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe systemd-boot provides a clean, minimal boot interface—but lacks support for basic theming. This limits accessibi...

GitHub