Whatever the old farts will come with their stupid laws, SURPRISE MOTHERFUCKERS, it's Linux. It's always a sudo away from doing (or not) exactly what you (don't) want. I know. This is beyond their comprehension. Adding a field here is ok to me. Because if it ends up being used:

I can not set it
I can set it wrong
I can be 1000y old
I can have a different age for every request
I can prevent the shit accessing it from accessing it
I can uninstall the shit that is trying to access it

The only thing that will hurt from this are companies in CA, CO and wherever.

The average Linux user will not give a single fuck. I know I don't.

[–] eleitl@lemmy.zip 17 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

A lot of people born January the first, 1970.

[–] caseyweederman@lemmy.ca 2 points 5 hours ago

Ahh, another Epoch traveler

[–] exaybachae@startrek.website 18 points 11 hours ago

I like the idea of a system add-on that randomizes all user age responses with a different date that equals like 25-99years old (assuming 25 years meets the highest age for the applicable standards).

Not too dissimilar from a random MAC address generating feature.

[–] homesweethomeMrL@lemmy.world 6 points 9 hours ago (1 children)

SURPRISE MOTHERFUCKERS, it's Linux was my band in high school.

[–] voidsignal@lemmy.world 3 points 8 hours ago

I need to ear it now

[–] rc__buggy@sh.itjust.works 5 points 11 hours ago

And really, when was the last time some megacorp tried to access userdb on any machine?

[–] voidsignal@lemmy.world 4 points 11 hours ago

And in a twisted way, this may be good. For instance, Microslop will probably spent millions to please their pedos overlords. They will require PC vendors to add cryptographic chips to ensure you cannot change your age, that has been verified after a background check required to buy Windows... We all know how product managers think (if you don't you're lucky, stay the fuck away)

The probable result: more and more people will switch to Linux, where they can be a 3000y old tree.

[–] whimsy@lemmy.zip -1 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

All of that is true, at least for now. But if you look at the work the systemd developers have been doing with remote attestation and end to end verification of computers, it starts to paint a grim picture. Web based integrity might not be that far off. But I really hope it doesn't get that bad

[–] voidsignal@lemmy.world 4 points 5 hours ago* (last edited 5 hours ago) (1 children)

The owner of the machine is the one who decide. You can already make the life of other non root users absolutely miserable. The major difference is that it is YOU who control that. Not the company you bought your laptop from.

Also attestation is a super cool feature when you understand it. Because again, it's free.

In general, systemd hate is a mark of ignorance. Which is fine. Ignorance can be fixed.

[–] whimsy@lemmy.zip 1 points 4 hours ago* (last edited 4 hours ago)

I quite like the init and journal parts of systemd. I'm not a hater. But I've been around long enough to see where this attestation road might lead to. Google tried it recently with their WEI initiative.

But now the time is ripe again with child safety being mentioned left and right. This is all speculative but combine secure boot ,and kernel level attestation and suddenly one must use verified applications which among other things can't block ads and whatnot