Ubuntu Planning Mandatory Age Verification | Hacker News Reader

Ubuntu Planning Mandatory Age Verification

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43 pointsegorfine23 comments

Anybody can become an Ubuntu developer. This is one such Ubuntu developer discussing possible implementation of a law that affects them across multiple distributions in good faith while trying to respect privacy and maintaining users' ultimate control of their Free Software based operating systems.

Ubuntu has made no decision here. This is essentially one contributor seeking consensus on what sort of contribution in relation to this law might be acceptable to multiple projects. It is very far from "Ubuntu Planning <X>" and exactly how community driven projects are supposed to work.

Comments disparaging Ubuntu have fallen for Lunduke's clickbait in their ignorance.

> Anybody can become an Ubuntu developer

Oh yeah, by the way! How much time left until people are allowed to develop software without KYC? Before you laugh off, this was unimaginable just a year ago and here we are: Google won't bend anymore. ID yourself or never develop for Android.

> have fallen for Lunduke's clickbait in their ignorance.

This is indeed clickbait, but surely you realize that the merit is here.

Let's post the mailing list link directly? https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-devel/2026-March/04...

Here's my suggestion for an implementation strategy:

- Keep the "Next" button greyed out until you add three forms of identification.

- Ask the user to take photos of their 3 forms of ID with a webcam. Ask the user to hold them in increasingly bizarre poses -- left hand, right hand, woven between your fingers, behind your ear, between your toes.

- Add an "accessibility" button. This button pops up a text box that advises you if you can't comply because you don't have hands, ears, feet or whatever (hey, some people don't and that's perfectly fine!) you can just use a picture of somebody else's body parts, and helpfully provides a menu of AI-generated pictures of human ears, hands, etc. for you to copy-paste.

- To preserve privacy, send the actual photos to /dev/null.

- The "verify the photo of my ID" button should check whether random.random() > 0.8. On average the user will require 5 tries per photo, or 15 tries total.

- Add a checkbox that says "I am not in the state of California". Upon clicking this checkbox the "Next" button becomes not grayed out and you can proceed without completing the identity checking process.

- If the user does not seem to have a webcam installed, all UI elements are grayed out except the "I am not in the state of California" checkbox.

- If the user is installing via command line, say "Are you in the state of California [y/n]?" If the answer does not start with 'N' or 'n', it will simply repeat the question.

- The list of acceptable identification shall be: Driver's license, learner's permit, Social Security card, library card, school identification, Boy / Girl Scout membership card, school yearbook photo, Burger King Kid's Club membership card, utility bill, ISP bill, Burger King receipt, Mahalo Rewards card, any receipt paid via credit card, birthday card, a photo of a printout of any email from OnlyFans, a photo of a DNS TXT record containing the string "CALIFORNIA", a photo of your X account with a blue check mark.

This got a chuckle out of me, thanks for your thoroughness and I hope never to cross you

Don't forget to scan your anus and send to Microsoft.

Why Microsoft would you ask? Well, for the same reason it is Microsoft who signs linux loaders for secure boot.

What's next? Redirecting local searches to Amaz... oh.

Protecting the impressionable from snaps and Canonical is of utmost importance.

Any linux distro that implements it, will probably lose all desktop users

False.

Not only normies are going to provide all the IDs asked along with anus scans, but they sincerely do not understand what's wrong with that.

And how many of them are using desktop Linux?

I would agree with you given we were talking about MacOS or Windows. Who knows, that may come later. If this was a more consumer-focused niche linux distro like SteamOS, I would also be concerned for the same reason.

But this is a general purpose desktop linux distro. A common, beginners-choice option, but still an option placing the user in a pretty rare breed. This isn't to game cheaply on a Steam Deck they bought, this is a choice to either build a PC ignoring the buy prompts for "Remember the windows license!", or choosing to overwrite the preinstalled OS on your laptop/PC.

The venn diagram of anus-scan-accepters and regular ubuntu users is simply two distant circles.

They're not asking for IDs. The user simply has to declare their age. I'm not happy about any of this, but there is no "verification."

It sure sounds like there's no liability if the user lies: "An operating system provider or a covered application store that makes a good faith effort to comply with this title, taking into consideration available technology and any reasonable technical limitations or outages, shall not be liable for an erroneous signal indicating a user's age range..."

> They're not asking for IDs

For now. But before you know you will have to fully KYC yourself before using any OS and you will not be allowed to boot your Linux of modify any of the binaries.

And before you laugh it off, let me remind you that this very topic of conversation we are having here would sound as ridiculous just a year ago.

No normies would use Linux desktop not against their will.

People need to stop calling it "age verification" and start calling it what it really is: Dissident Identification

Government‑issued age‑verification tokens for offline computers are going to be hilarious. I hope they come in suppository form factor.

Community planning another derivative

Trusted boot is here to ensure you will only boot Microsoft-blessed Linux distro and will have no way to modify its binaries.

In this room? Over my dead machine(s), firmware toggles, and 'mokutil'; secure boot isn't that bad, yet. They're pushing, our move. Can't say I know a good one, long term.

Dear Ubuntu:

Go fuck yourself.

So much this.

Unfortunately, others will follow because most are spineless.

Honestly, it is such a weird move. I already avoid ubuntu, but this automatically is a nogo for any distro that adopts it.. and in such a voluntary fashion.. no less. But good luck with that.

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