Age Verification - SystemD

General
1

I am a Forum Moderator (Not a dev btw)
I am against age verification

CachyOS is based in Germany with founders in both Germany & Russia
Laws for Age Verification do not exist there

So the conclusion:
CachyOS is doing nothing about age verification

CachyOS utilizes the SystemD framework
There is no plans to stop using this or using an alternative
CachyOS does not implement anything to do with age verification using SystemD
SystemD does not even have age verification

So the conclusion:
There is no age verification with SystemD

Inform yourself here:

Thank you to the CachyOS team, community, supporters, volunteers
You are amazing!

Useful information from zymotek below:
The policy perspective has been extremely helpful to me.
I have already made use of the information provided by zymotek further down in the thread.
I have forwarded it to friend who is in law, a public defender in my country.
He knows about politics and law stuff unlike myself.
I have also spread awareness about this situation to friend groups outside of this space and will continue to do so.
If the laws have not reached you yet. I suggest reading through.

If anything is to change with these two things there will be an announcement made by the developers

For those with understanding and respect for CachyOS
Thank you for choosing CachyOS, we appreciate you being here and enjoying the ride

I recommend everyone to read Garudas posting about both of these topics:

Stay Cachy everyone.

:rhinoceros:

8

I understand your point,
but I still believe this isn’t the best way to maintain a healthy community.
Simply deleting posts and users without properly addressing the underlying issue isn’t an effective solution.

9

Look, we are all volunteers here, no-one gets paid for their work, we all do it in our spare time. The original thread totally spiraled out of control. And after Lunduke lead his masses of racist radicals angry followers here, this is when posts got deleted without further ado.

When people start insulting others, threat them with violence, or are just plainly being assholes, what is the point in telling them so? Haters will be haters, no matter what.

Lunduke’s video is just rage-bait, he has no idea about what went on in said discussion (and yes, I know, it is not visible any more but that is because people actually started behaving in an illegal manner, which is seen into by the authorities and we cannot have this online because, well, the forum mods are responsible for the contents, thanks to some moron politics of the past 25 years, but that is a different story).

This is a forum about CachyOS, not about politics. We said that once. None of us is willing to parrot these things over and over again.

Behind the scenes, there is a discussion going on how to proceed. Especially as it is unclear who is doing what and how to deal with topics like this, that tend to completely go apeshit over time.

But again: we are doing this in our spare-time and we are located all over the world, so a discussion takes time.

10

It’s a local law (few US states).
Why would anyone else not in those countries comply with that, or do something about it?

What are they gonna do? Arrest everyone involved with CachyOS and deport them to those US states to incarcerate them?

11

This was mentioned several times during the discussion already. Just watch what happens now…

12

As someone who’s from Eastern Europe, i’m so glad that it’s not affecting Cachy :>
Cachy and Endeavour will always be my favorite distros :smiley:

13

I don’t think it does many favors to refer to Lunduke’s audience as racist radicals. It gives a certain implication of possible biases. You can just as easily refer to his “followers”. He’s already screen shot that part of this post and is putting it on his X.

I don’t have an opinion much of the guy either way. I’m pretty new to Linux generally. This particular topic is interesting to talk about, and there is reason for many to be concerned. Internet anonymity is important for a lot of people. Not for nefarious purposes, but like for myself, “degoogling” my life. Cutting Microsoft out of my data as much as possible. And we’ve seen how often data breaches happen, and vital info just gets leaked all over the dark web. Not to mention the possibility of governments being able to use it against people in the future.

I understand Cachy isn’t in a location where you guys would compel age verification. That doesn’t mean it won’t become that. A lot of places, in and out of the US, are enforcing these kinds of laws all of a sudden, all together. What will happen if it does come to where you’re based out of? I guess that’s where some people are getting concerned.

I know Cachy’s current stance on it, and I respect it. I love Cachy tbh. I switched from Bazzite in January. Although I’ve had a couple hurdles to figure out as a new guy, I don’t plan to go anywhere from Cachy any time soon. I hope I don’t get kicked for replying on this topic or something. I’m just trying to be helpful, because I like the os a lot. It’s taught me a lot in a very short time. Keep up the good work.

14

Thank you for opening this for discussion.

It’s good to hear CachyOS is not in a jurisdiction affected by this (yet), and therefore has no plans to force birth date entry on install (at this time).

What things look like today, for CachyOS

The SystemD PR adding the first steps towards age verification is here:
systemd/systemd PR #40954

  • This adds a birthDate field to the userdb that is part of systemd
  • It is tagged to become part of systemd in version v261 (not the current version yet)
  • Version v261 is currently scheduled for release on June 17, 2026
  • Attempts to revert it have been shot down
  • SystemD developers are adding this, CachyOS has no direct control over that
  • CachyOS uses systemd; it is a core component and removing it completely is not viable
  • The birthDate field can be read by any application that chooses to look there
  • The birthDate field is optional and empty by default

If you do nothing, and CachyOS continues to do nothing, and nothing else changes, the field will exist on your system but should remain empty.

You could think of it as a somewhat benign tumor, that hasn’t quite decided to become cancer yet.

Actually, this is part of systemd-homed, which is only used and installed on Fedora

On Arch systems, systemd-homed is part of and packaged with systemd.
On CachyOS, it is always installed and cannot be easily removed.
The systemd-homed service is disabled by default, but this does not matter for this feature.
The systemd-userdbd service is enabled and active by default.

You can see everything userdb knows about you with one of these commands:

userdbctl user $USER
userdbctl user --output=json $USER

The birthDate field, once it hits your system, should appear there. Might be hidden, if empty.

It’s just an innocent field! That’s not verification! What’s the big deal?

The PR above directly references the recent laws by name and openly states:
“Stores the user’s birth date for age verification, as required by recent laws”

It is not some innocent coincidence that this is being added now. It never existed before. It didn’t need to exist now. It is overtly and explicitly being added for the express purpose of being used for verification and enforcement down the line.

It will likely not be systemd doing the verification or enforcement. But systemd is providing the standardized foundation for exactly that. That is the entire purpose and motivation of this change.

What if it stays just a birthDate field?

Highly unlikely. These laws did not start appearing all at once by coincidence. This is organized, orchestrated, funded, lobbied for. By major companies and organizations. Including a coalition of 34 companies that all sell age verification solutions. Every new mandate means more forced customers, more data collection, more profit for them.

More info here: Ageless Linux — The Lobby: Who Wrote These Laws

Even if, by some miracle, this all goes away, the mere presence of such a field is an unnecessary privacy issue.

All applications have access to this value. Some of the laws even prescribe that applications shall/must access the value. A birth date is sensitive, personal information. Now freely available, to anyone who asks, in a standardized place, with a standardized name.

Even if the value is a fake date, or empty, that in itself is meta data that can be used to track and partially identify, when combined with other meta data. It is an additional PII data point that never existed before, and didn’t need to exist.

Do I need to do something?

That’s up to you. Right now it’s just a birthDate field. Which will likely remain empty, for now.

Even if, in the future, CachyOS ends up forcing you to enter a date during install, you could enter a fake date. And, after installing, set it to empty again. But, as mentioned above, even this leaks meta data about you. You’re now identified as the kind of guy who sets his birthDate field to empty.

What’s more concerning is what comes after. Nobody goes through all this effort just to add a date field you can fake or set to empty. Some applications may stop working without a valid birthDate. Verification with third party services may become required any time the value changes. Periodic selfies may follow, like already the case with banking apps in some jurisdictions.

Where do you draw the line? When is it too late to change course?

What can I do?

From a software perspective:

  • There will be workarounds. But they will likely become more difficult as this progresses.
  • Right now: A birthDate field is being added to systemd, in the same place as the realName you can enter when you install or add users
    • Any process running as your user or root can read it
    • You can use userdbctl and homectl to monitor or modify this field, respectively
  • If the mere presence of the field bothers you, you would have to replace systemd with a version that doesn’t have this change, but still provides all other services CachyOS needs
    • Someone has created a systemd fork that removes it: Liberated SystemD
    • It doesn’t look like you can easily install it yet, but that will likely come later, if not for this incarnation then for another
  • Alternatively, you could disable and mask the systemd-userdbd service
    • This is much easier, and effectively neutralizes this change
    • The code will technically exist on your machine, but nothing can request birthDate anymore
    • If something requires userdb, this could cause errors, but few things currently do
    • It might be problem with Gnome, which does have heavier dependencies on userdb/logind

From a policy perspective:

  • The people who pushed for this will not stop pushing for more
    • There is too much potential profit in forcing age verification and data harvesting
    • The slope doesn’t need to be slippery, if someone keeps pushing you down
    • The only way to prevent it is to push back, together, while we still can
  • You can let your politicians and lawmakers know this is an issue people care about, something they don’t want. Most of them are tech illiterate and don’t even understand what they’re participating in.
    • This matters even in regions with no current legislation. Perhaps even more so.
    • There will be attempts to push it everywhere as long as it is profitable.
  • No matter where you are, you can:
    • Inform yourself and others
    • Help people understand why this matters, why they should care
    • Show that it’s not about safety, but corporate profits, ruthless data harvesting, and control
    • Explain why this is not harmless, even in its current form, which is certainly not the end
    • Dispel the many misinformed excuses people use, to pretend it doesn’t matter
    • Not everyone can be convinced. Some people feel safer with their heads down and in the sand. Many of them feel an irrational hatred towards those who dare to look up.
    • It’s important to stay calm and reasonable. Don’t make yourself look like a “radical”.
15

<3 <3 <3 I am glad to hear CachyOs will do nothing about age verification!
The day any distro implements such a thing, is simply the day its off my list :smiley: .

Thank you CachyOs for standing up firm.
I proudly give the middle finger to all of those low IQ monkeys in California.

Any human that accepts such control from the government shouldn’t even be allowed to vote.

Thank you Cachy for the good work.

”I will remove you, you are not contributing anything of use here”

YES !!! I agree.
Let the stupid people be stupid all by themselves. Lets not feed them what they are looking for.

16

Some mistakes were made here, i saw lunduke talking about this.

My impression of this post as it originally was (as i saw it in his video mind you):

“CachyOS is not implementing age verification, CachyOS refuses to take a stance on the politics of it beyond that.”

Lunduke’s impression of htis post:

“CachyOS is pro age verification, and we will censor you if you disagree”

You can’t blame him too much for this conclusion though, because mistakes were made by moderation in handling this.

The mistake: Deleting posts discussing this issue.

The acceptable alternative: Making an official thread for this discussion (or rather the conclusion) such as this very thread, then if someone brings it up, you link to this thread and close the new thread.

That way nobody gets the impression that there’s censorship going on, and nobody should be getting the impression that cachyos is taking a political stance for or against them, although imo the phrasing on “CachyOS will not be implementing age verification” could be a bit more clear.

CachyOS is doing nothing about age verification is a bit vague and can be interpreted in many ways, maybe another moderator should handle announcements like this, someone with better grammar.

Also it seems like lunduke (if this really is him) is asking for more clarification possibly realizing his mistake: Clarification on Age Verification stance and comments

I hope that thread gets an official response.

17

You know what makes me mad?
It’s people’s toleration to government control.

In this world, we have good things and bad things. If you dont obliterate the bad things right away on the spot now, tomorrow it will be too late.

Every human being should be extremely mad about these ridiculous laws. We should never ever allow these to happen even if it requires a “nepal 2.0 at the bare minimum”. Those stupid monkeys are there to serve us not to control us. The parent should be the one parenting, not the operating system.

People are dumb enough to believe the government is on their side. The government is not on your side. It just wants control, and a thick piece of your $$$ pie . I am not going to get into politics.

Operating system requires age verification? BAD. Use a vpn if needed and get an OS that doesn’t.

The probable reason why the moderator is acting the way he/she is, is probably because he cant tolerate stupid people. It is very simple people…. Government control over any OS is a bad thing for the whole planet.

We should work together for our freedom. Fuck age verification.

4 days ago I started a project “ECHO“, I dont care if I have to run the server oversea. The second Discord asks for my ID I am release it to the public. It should be ready by then.

I will fight for the community until my last breath.
This will run on Windows and Linux :smiley: .

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18

No, the mistake was anyone trusting Lunduke. He has a history of spreading sensationalist misinfo to drive engagement and views.

The post clearly states that CachyOS is not in any jurisdiction for the current local state laws in California or Colorado to be enforceable and that the CachyOS team have NO PLANS to do anything about it.

Ask yourself how anyone with a brain and/or a good faith motive could ever possibly get it as wrong as Lunduke did.

Here are the facts in case anyone is still confused about what is going on and what these changes mean:

On the pull request:

The change adding the birthdate field was made to a specific module (systemd-homed) in the systemd suite, but not to the base of systemd itself. This module is not currently used by any major distribution that uses systemd or the vast majority of their derivatives. It is disabled by default in just about every major distribution or derivative you’ve ever heard of that uses systemd.

Instead, tools provided by the “shadow” package handle user and group management as they have done for a long time now. This package provides tools such as useradd, userdel, usermod, groupadd, groupdel and others.

The program to create a user account, useradd, only requires a username for the user account and the group(s) that the user account will be associated with. That’s it. The passwd program is then used to set the password for the user account. No other information is even asked about that user.

As far as the statement that threads would be deleted and accounts banned, it doesn’t take a genius to conclude that the moderation team here is rather small and ill equipped to deal with a sudden flood of panic posts by the very audience Lunduke tends to rile up with his sensationalism. This isn’t the first time he’s kicked his hornet’s nest and caused a headache for unsuspecting devs or moderation teams. I don’t blame the mods here for wanting to get out in front of it. They are unpaid volunteers and don’t deserve to have to clean up that kind of mess.

Any questions?

19

He’s a journalist, anyone not taking what he says with a grain of salt is a moron. Because he’s a journalist.

But at least he’s a real journalist, which is a rare thing these days.

Be that as it may, Lunduke is not the topic of discussion here, and this isn’t the place to discuss your personal views on him.

20

So then why are you talking about him instead of the topic of discussion?

Where, in the majority of my post where I’m not even talking about Lunduke, am I wrong?

I don’t even see how you could read my post and conclude I’m trying to make Lunduke the topic of discussion. You’re the one who mentioned him and linked to his video.

21

I still put a fake birthdate to virtually everything out of habit.
If CachyOS, SystemD or whoever asks me to input a birthdate, I’ll just put 1969.
If CachyOS asks me for government ID or a selfie video, then I’ll switch to an “illegal” distro.
Pretty much everything is a crime these days anyway, I don’t care.
Lots of things are illegal that almost everyone breaks, like jaywalking, going a little above speed limit, not reporting some cash you received in tips, etc.
The point is this is no big deal, it’s just some parental control feature that’s mandated in some places now. If they really lock down the internet in the distant future, then that will allow alternatives like Tor Onions and I2P to flourish.

22

You mentioned him by name 3 times in your first comment, including in the first sentence. Then again 2 more times in this comment. HardCode4All was the first to mention him by name in this thread, 2 times, before the link to the video. The OP indirectly references him in the first sentence. Throughout the thread there are many other indirect references.

Multiple staff members mentioned him, directly or indirectly, while censoring all discussions on this topic, even when the topic had nothing to do with him. For example, here and here. Many others I don’t have at hand or are simply deleted.

That is why.

I don’t know why you and others are so obsessed about this one guy with a YouTube channel, or why you all seem to think that him covering these topics somehow proves it’s not real. But, frankly, this comes across as delusional, paranoid and unhinged.

We’re trying to talk about laws, policies, code changes, and how this affects CachyOS users.

The facts are the facts. If people have their facts wrong, please correct them.

Censoring or derailing discussions never clears up misunderstandings. It creates more of them.

I partially addressed this in my previous comment.

My understanding is that:

  • Most of the change is to user-record, part of userdb
  • That makes it a central part of systemd, not just homed
  • homed is part of systemd either way, not a separate package
    • But it is true that the service is currently disabled by default in CachyOS
  • homed is only involved because homectl can be used to set birthDate
  • userdbctl can be used to read it, whether systemd-homed.service is running or not

Is any part of that incorrect? Do you have a way to confirm that?

If it’s true that homed service running is required for it to be available, that’s good in the short term, but potentially worse in the long term.

Because, if more laws like this are passed, including in Germany, and CachyOS eventually complies, perhaps under duress… then not only would we have to have a birthDate field, but we would also be forced to enable homed, and everything that comes with it.

If this had to be implemented at all, it should have been done as a completely separate package, so that it could be removed entirely where not needed/wanted. It should never have been added to something as central and unavoidable as systemd, of all places.

23

  • But it is true that the service is currently disabled by default in CachyOS

It’s disabled by default on just about every major distribution or derivative… so nothing else you seem to be worried about matters. At all. None of it is worth talking about right now. So why the panic?

Something almost nobody uses was updated with a birthdate field… something that is sitting off in the corner being ignored by almost everyone anyways… so naturally the internet has to sperg out and declare the end of existence itself right?

This is what you aren’t seeing. This could have been a easy get out of jail free card for the entire Linux world. Legislators don’t know how little this one systemd module is used. We could have pointed at it and said “See? We did something” and they would have left us alone. But because morons like you decided you needed to freak out about it, you drew enough attention to this that they might not fall for it now.

So congrats. You may be cutting off your own nose to spite your face.

The only way to truly fight stuff like this is by either convincing the legislators how bad it would be and changing their minds, or mass non-compliance. CachyOS has already stated they DO NOT PLAN to do anything about this right now because they don’t have to. It doesn’t affect CachyOS. That may change in the future, but again we could have simply pointed to a systemd module nobody uses and gotten the legislators to leave us alone.

24

I envy your ability to live in the now. It must be quite blissful.

I already explained why this will not stop with a simple date field, and why that alone could never have been the end of it, in my comment above, if you care to look.

Now is precisely the time to push back. Later will be much more difficult.

25

And what does “pushing back” look like to you? Flooding the forums of a distro when the team behind it has already stated they don’t plan on doing anything about it? Calling the team “fascist bootlickers” and throwing vulgar epithets at them? Seriously, look at the replies to this post on X and tell me any of this is “pushing back”. https://x.com/CachyOS/status/2037893278993952958

You’re yelling at the wrong people here. The CachyOS team didn’t submit this legislation. The CachyOS team didn’t vote on it.

All they did was make the decision to do nothing about it until they absolutely have to. Right now, they don’t have to.

Nothing else is worth talking about right now.

26

Why is it always weekends with my family that these kinds of shitstorms hit me?

First of all: I’m not part of the Cachy team or a moderator. I’m just a user who happens to spend quite some time here, lately. And for my nice behavior in this forum, I was rewarded with a few more rights.

So, in contrast to Lunduke, I have seen quite a lot of the whole discussion here in this forum.

Sorry, Lunduke, to call your followers racist, maybe that was a bit harsh. Now, here is how that came to be:

What you do repeatedly, first in your Cachy video, and now also with what I wrote up there, is taking quotes out of context, adding some self-righteous rage-bait on top, stir a bit and let your followers do the rest.

Right after your video, this forum was hit by a horde of aggressive, partly racist trolls. Now, this could be pure coincidence. But it could also be that amongst your followers, there are some very aggressive people.

We will never know, will we?

What we do know is that your out-of-context quotes stir this kind of behavior. And all of that smells very much like the Alt-Right-Playbook, which you as a journalist surely have heard about.

And now you’re even starting to spread more out-of-context-quotes on X. Which portrays a purpose, wouldn’t you agree?

Back to the topic of Age Verification: all was said. Cachy = Arch = Systemd. So you guys are barking up the wrong tree. Be mad at systemd if you want, but leave the downstream distros alone. They are not your enemies.

There were radical statements in the original thread, this is why that term was used and there were aggressive and partly racist comments coming in after your video. They got deleted, which is not censorship. Be a good journalist and look up the definition of censorship.

This is all I have to say on this matter.