I’ve spent years championing Linux as the only escape from Big Tech, but I’m starting to get twitchy.
While we’re distracted by the Steam Deck making Linux “mainstream,” the corporate players and politicians are busy building a digital cage. Between California’s AB-1043 mandates and Microsoft’s “Face Check” infrastructure, I’m worried we’re heading for a hard schism: “Sanitised Linux” vs the “Free Rebel” distros.
If the compliant, age-gated version becomes the industry standard, where does that leave the rest of us? Digital exile?
I’ve put some thoughts together on why the “Golden Cage” is closing in and why education, not mandates, is the only real fix.
That legislation is pushed by big tech lobbies, mainly Meta. The more people use open source the less power those big companies have to push shit like this.
Also we’ve had attempts to microslopify Linux before, by the hands of Canonical and Red Hat.
Also we’ve had attempts to microslopify Linux before, by the hands of Canonical and Red Hat.
the most recent example was done by the american gov’t instead of corporations when the kernel maintainers group kicked out russian developers.
How the fuck is Linux a trap compared to the shenanigans of Microsoft?
Microsoft and other proprietary vendors are the trap, and Linux is the way to avoid it.I agree with you. The only thing I could see “Linux being a trap” would be, for people who expect Windows replacement without the Microsoft bullshit. So in one way this “could” be interpreted as a trap for those. But that is if I try to stretch it to justify calling it a trap.
I agree with you, that’s exactly what my post says.
Microsoft is the trap. My point is that “Sanitised Linux” is just Microsoft-style shenanigans being forced onto our ecosystem via regulation. I literally started the post by saying Linux is the only sanctuary left.
i 100% agree with you and i’m sharing this to warn you that there are plenty in this are that will balk at the message that you’re trying to share.
don’t let them deter you; most of them are visitors from captured origins and will refuse to accept it as a result.
But here’s the thing, nobody knows what operating system you choose to install. This regulation will be equally as effective as anti-pirating legislation has been, which is to say, essentially nil.
Actually, even without “tracking” individuals, the metadata is still there. I can see from my own anonymous, privacy-respecting server stats exactly how many hits are coming from Android versus GNU/Linux. There is no personal data involved, but the OS “fingerprint” is clear.
If a small, self-hosted blog can see that high-level data, then a bank or a government gateway definitely can. The comparison to anti-piracy doesn’t quite work because you don’t have to “log in” to a pirated movie, but you do have to authenticate for the services that actually matter. That’s where the compliance gate gets locked.
An operating system can lie about that though. The only reason it doesn’t is because of convention.
There is no technical reason it couldn’t look like a different OS. Try changing your user agent, it’s that simple in most cases.
And services can choose to only allow operating systems which don’t lie, have anti-tamper mechanisms, and authenticate themselves cryptographically. It has definitely been easy to spoof your identity in the past, but OP is talking about where we might be heading in the future. Since the laws about OS:es having to partially identify the user is so obviously useless in its current form, don’t you think the corporations and politicians who are pushing for it are going to keep expanding it when they get the opportunity?
User agents are just the tip of the iceberg. Between TCP/IP stack fingerprinting and modern hardware attestation (TPM/Secure Boot), pretending to be a different OS is becoming a lot harder than just changing a string in your browser settings. The ‘handshake’ I mentioned before is at a much deeper level than that.
OK I read it as Linux won’t cut it if we are forced to use Microsoft.
Microsoft will of course do everything possible to create that situation, as they’ve been doing very successfully since the 80’s.Linux is the only sanctuary left
Acktually there is still some Free and Open Source BSD variants. And for the lols we also have GNU Hurd. So even a world without Linux, does not mean we have to use Windows. (I don’t even count MacOS.)
bsd was originally a calfornia thing and california had made the first step to this reality; i bet big changes are coming their way.
If the compliant, age-gated version becomes the industry standard, where does that leave the rest of us?
With the distros that don’t comply, as always.
Well, if your banking and government services, game platforms like Steam, streaming platforms like Spotify and Netflix all start requiring “age DRM” on the system level, what choice do we have?
Banking can be done in person at the bank. Games and media can be pirated.
Use another system.
Change banks. File complaints with them.
Entertainment isn’t relevant to me.
How would anyone place a 100% community driven distribution like Debian in such a cage? There’s no monetary leverage, the community is truly international, so local laws don’t apply …
Please note that it’s also one of the most prolific distributions, and the foundation p.e. for *buntu.If you’re living in an oppressive jurisdiction, your employer might obviously not allow you to use a truly free operating system, but that’s hardly Linux’s fault.
So if your favorite distribution is starting bullshit, just switch to the next one, there are literally thousands of them. That’s why “Year of the Linux desktop” is confusing: it’s “year of steamOs” or “year of *buntu”, probably even “year of Debian”, but most certainly never “year of the nixos desktop”.
You have choice. Use it.
@halfdane This seems to be about more control, profits and data harvesting. Long live MX Linux.
My real worry isn’t that Debian will cave, but that the services we use every day—banks, government sites, DRM-heavy media—will start checking for a “compliant” kernel. If those “invisible borders” get built, you might have a truly free OS that’s effectively useless for 90% of the modern web.
It’s not about the distro failing; it’s about the “compliant” versions becoming the only key to the door. We have the choice now, but the gap between “free” and “functional” is definitely getting wider.
How will they check for a compliant kernel, at a technical level? I haven’t seen any proposed way to do that that can’t be easily circumvented.
It’s less about a “scan” and more about the “handshake.” Look at things like Windows 11 requiring a TPM and Secure Boot, or the Microsoft Pluton chip being baked into newer CPUs.
They don’t need to inspect your code. They just need a cryptographic “attestation” that says your hardware and kernel are in a “known good” state. If your DIY kernel doesn’t have the right digital signature from the manufacturer, the service whether it’s a bank or a Netflix stream, simply says “computer says no” and denies the connection.
Sure, we’ll find workarounds, but for 99% of people, that “invisible border” is a brick wall.
Sure, we’ll find workarounds
I’d phrase it as “we might occasionally find workarounds that kinda work sometimes”. I tried running de-Googled Android on my phone for a while, and the only reason I could use it for online banking, pay for public transport, contact health services, etc. was because some people had reverse-engineered Google’s services (i.e. microG). It also stopped working every now and then when something changed, and to my knowledge Google could also shut it down instantly if they started encrypting their APIs. I wouldn’t bet on there always being workarounds if this push to lock down operating systems and online services continues.
Someone else posted something interesting/alarming the other day… With AI becoming more advanced and also more accessible, it’s going to be increasingly difficult to keep spam, scams, etc. at bay. If the mainstream computing world ends up in this gilded cage trap, even if a minority choose to maintain and use forks that stay outside the system, it might be quite difficult to keep for example a forum functional.
will start checking for a “compliant” kernel.
Reminds me of all the banking apps that rely on Google’s “secure” crap to run.
How would anyone place a 100% community driven distribution like Debian in such a cage?
By getting the Debian deciding body to approve systemd a while back, for starters.
It’s apparently very easy.I swear people have rose tinted glasses as to the state of the init system before the current generation of system management daemons.
If you really want to have Debian without systemd there is always Duvean but the Debian architects are free to choose the technologies that solve the very real system orchestration problems that exist.
All used profusely by hobbysts and evangelists, the kind of people with a lot of spare time to write bullshit online, and never ran more than 5 machines for more than a year with evolving operational requirements.
Got data on that, have you?
Usage and contributions data on debian and rhel, the vast majority uses systemd and does not complain about it.
Edit: since you probably don’t care about people actually working with linux, a further datapoint is the steam hardware survey.
So, by your own words, everyone who uses systemd and doesn’t complain is
All used profusely by hobbysts and evangelists, the kind of people with a lot of spare time to write bullshit online, and never ran more than 5 machines for more than a year with evolving operational requirements.
so, again, data on this or just keyboard warrioring?
Don’t bother answering, we both know the answer.
Bye.
I think it’s helpful to put some thought into why you use Linux and what you really need from it. I use it primarily for choice, privacy, and to just not be using anything by Microsoft/Apple/Google. Security is nice to have but it’s not the reason I’m using Linux, so handing over my photo ID to a third party I trust is an acceptable if disappointing risk.
Sure, my OS will be tied to my ID, but as long as my online traffic isn’t that should be fine. If they wanted to monitor my online traffic it would make far more sense to do it at the VPN level instead. Not by having my open source operating system redirect my traffic so that it’s associated with my ID.
The big risk is social media requiring proof of ID. Bots are becoming more and more common and proof of ID available at the OS level on Windows, Mac, and Android would be very tempting for social media. That’s a different concern though.
I think that’s a dangerous assumption to make. If the OS is tied to your physical identity, the ‘VPN’ layer becomes much less of a shield. Once the kernel level is ‘compliant’ with an ID check, the metadata being leaked or even the hardware ID itself makes anonymity a lot harder to maintain.
You’re right about the social media risk, but the OS is the foundation. If you give up the keys to the house, it doesn’t matter how many extra locks you put on the individual room doors. That ‘disappointing risk’ is exactly how the ‘invisible borders’ start getting built.
Parts of what you just said are not really a proper response to what I said, either because of accuracy or relevance. So I’m just going to address the one important part of what you said, metadata.
I didn’t consider metadata because I treat proof of age what it is, proof of age with proof of identity being incidental. If visiting a website requires handing over my full birthday, “hardware ID”, or real identity then I would be concerned, but we’re not there yet.
It’s a widely held view in the general public that you should be able to browse the internet privately just like you should be able to browse a library without the government seeing a log of every book you read, and I hope that would be enough to resolve this. The general public is not very concerned about browser fingerprinting, which effectively erases user privacy, but government mandated sharing of your identity online would be a red line that would get the normies involved.
You’re right that the average person doesn’t care about fingerprinting, but that’s exactly the problem. To me, browser fingerprinting isn’t just a technical quirk, it’s a violation of privacy that effectively erases your ability to be anonymous, regardless of whether you have a VPN or not.
If we let OS-level ID checks become the standard because people don’t care, we’re essentially legitimising that tracking. My red line isn’t just a government log of my identity, it’s the fact that the tech is being built to make that log possible in the first place. Once the infrastructure is there, the incidental proof of identity quickly becomes the primary feature.
Your response again doesn’t really follow from what I wrote. It retains some key words but not the ideas.
Browser fingerprinting which exists because the average person can’t be bothered concealing it and the theoretical sharing of your ID with the sites you visit due to a government mandate are two entirely different things. The relevant difference is that the government doesn’t mandate browser fingerprinting, it exists because it is technologically possible and the mitigation measures are more inconvenient than the average user is willing to deal with.
As for normalizing OS-level ID checks as a slippery slope towards sharing your full ID as part of a HTTP request … firstly that is not something you can get around with an alternative distro anyway, because it would involve all major websites. Secondly, that is a hypothetical within a hypothetical. Thirdly, if that really is the path that we’re on, now is not is not the most effective time to oppose it, because the slippery slope argument is far more persuasive from the bottom of the slope.
EDIT: I think I just did the same thing I accused you of, talking past you. My response basically just rejects your core conceit, that being a distinction between the private power-user experience and the non-private normie experience, and nothing else. I’ll need to edit this.
EDIT 2: Okay, fixed.
Security is nice to have but it’s not the reason I’m using Linux, so handing over my photo ID to a third party I trust is an acceptable if disappointing risk.
And for us who don’t find it an acceptable risk? Will I need an ID to read a book next?
You need ID to drive a car, which is essential in modern America. Worse still you need ID to rent a house and that’s normally getting fed straight into a massive insecure database. The advantage of Linux is that we could theoretically choose who we give our ID to (whether that’s Red Hat, Ubuntu, OpenSUSE, Debian, Arch, etc). Handing over your ID is necessary for some essential parts of modern life, and while I wouldn’t want to hand it over to access my operating system, I would be able to accept it.
Thinking critically, let’s imagine that only government approved companies could verify your ID and those companies are Google, Apple, Microsoft, and Persona. At that point I’d … really hate it but I’d hand over my ID. Then I’d double check my operating system isn’t logging and sharing my internet traffic.
There’s no indication that our online traffic will be required by law to be linked with our proven ID. If such a thing does happen, then firstly we are totally screwed, and secondly it would likely involve all major websites participating. We fundamentally won’t be able to get around it in that case.
I dont like the drivers license equivalence. Its physical, so not so easy to check. Driving car is a danger to others so it’s in society’s interest to have driver identifiers.
Handing over machine readible widespread technological identifiers to even participate in life is dystopian.
That stupid Newsom age-gating OS bill is pure political theatre. It won’t affect Linux – too many capitalists would be inconvenienced, and inconveniencing capitalists is the last thing capitalist darling Newsom would do; he couldn’t even be bothered to support a modest 5% tax on billionaires.
Linux is here to stay – it runs the internet. And it will always be customizable, because that’s part of what gives it so much value.
Their building a Prison System ™️ regardless, open source (e.g. Linux) just offers SOME protections.
We have to do more regardless, but it’s still all part of the good fight in my book
Year of linux?
Dude, please. I’m on my third decade of the thing already.
Ive been running Linux for close to a decade now and one thing that I’ve noticed is rarely brought up in Linux circles is that Linux Kernel Development is heavily funded by major big tech corpos. Examples include Microsoft, Google, Oracle, and IBM.
There is a vested corporate interest in keeping Linux well maintained as it is the OS that underpins the vast majority of corporate server architecture and infrastructure.
I’m not saying Linux development wouldn’t exist without them, but imho, Linux certainly wouldn’t be as ubiquitous as it is today without this corporate backing. Thusly, it is worth noting that in many ways, we Linux users have not escaped corporate influence simply from switching from Windows or MacOS to Linux.
We’ve maybe lessened it to some degree, but to think we are somehow immune to the misguided mandates from state governments, like the latest recent age verification laws, is misguided.
Guess you wanna maintain your own patchset then? Because that’s what freedom takes - building on the shoulders of giants and corpos, but also scrubbing the spyware off down into the kernel.
i think linux emphasizes the advantage of being able to fork code without the bad parts in this case.
the problem is they will probably target the infrastructure our linux machines connect through, or the services themselves as we’ve already started seeing.
i’ve been interested in those decentralized long range radio networks lately, for no particular reason.
I have somewhat similar concerns. I’m not as worried about sanitized Linux as I am about new mandates entrenching Microsoft, Apple, and Google as the only valid options. Even it it is an enormous pain in the ass for everyone, including those big three, it would infinitely preferably for them to more widespread adoption of alternatives.
Just propose solutions/mandates that are fundamentally incompatible with GPL and FOSS ideals, or deeply contentious within open source communities and you can do irreparable damage to the growth of Linux and any space that needs to adapt to those new mandates. Linux moving into education? Pretend it is needed to protect the children. Linux moving into government? Pretend it’s needed to protect security or efficiency. Linux moving into the workplace? Pretend it’s needed to protect AI or liability or synergy or whatever the fuck gets CEO dicks hard these days. BAM - Linux gets hit with massive internal strife and splitting of vital communities and resources. I know it was already absurdly contentious before, but seeing what happened when storing a users age hit systemd really worried me.
I think it’s already been kind of ongoing by co-opting or even creating “open source initiatives” from the business world who ultimately just jump in when things look mature and rapidly implement profit extraction and enshittification.
The systemd age-storage drama was a massive red flag. It showed how easily a “safety” mandate can be used as a wedge into the lower levels of the stack.
My worry is exactly what you said: politicians creating “compliance” requirements that are fundamentally toxic to the GPL or the way community distros operate. It’s not about making Linux better; it’s about making it legally unviable for anyone but a massive corporation to maintain. Digital enshittification via regulation.
Thesystemdage-storage dramawas a massive red flag.There, FTFY.
I think if Linux becomes something for the masses it will no longer be for me. So I’m hoping that won’t happen.
End users just want their hand to be held by some kind of corporation. Happy to give up their information and privacy. To have no choices in interface etc.
Basically, Linux for the masses will look exactly like ChromeOS. Completely unusable for a power user with a need for privacy and control.
The issue with Linux is going to be if there will be a single distro that dominates or if it will be more distributed. Right now, it looks like Google and Valve are the closest to making dominant distros, but I can see at least one EU government one being created as well. If there are few distros, then I can see development getting locked to those distros rather than across all Linux.
The same thing happened with Android, Google ended up controlling Android so the open source side got hollowed out and the closed source side controlled by Google became necessary to running Android.
End users just want their hand to be held by some kind of corporation.
SheepleOS
ChromeOS is basically the blueprint for the “Gold Cage”. My real worry is that “security” is just becoming a convenient excuse to swap user ownership for corporate control. Once that “masses” version becomes the legal standard for compliance, the rest of us are basically looking at digital exile.
Meh it’s not like Linux is one static block of immutable code.
It’s modular.
So it’s not like all linux distros will evolve the same way. And OP points it out that some distros are affected by age verification laws while others are not at all.
So I think it makes no sense to panic and thinking all linux will converge to some Windows ersatz…
I think the fact there is so many distros out there is our strength but also what prevents people from discovering the right linux for them.
So this will be the year of linux discovery imo and all linux user should help out new users finding their way to a linux that fit them for their journey to freedom.
Not really but you do see already that Linux is becoming more opinionated. For example recently kde introduced a new display manager (to replace sddm) that requires systemd.
It’s becoming harder to get off the beaten track.
I had similar thoughts, but at the same time i honestly think that wouldn’t be an issue because of the nature of linux and it being free and open source. There’s bound to be distros out there that won’t conform to whatever bs the corpos come up with.
I know what you mean, at work right now when you run Linux they don’t give you support but they also don’t enforce any of the bullshit but skill give you VPN access to the work resources.
On win and Mac they dust disabled USB storage access and there is a to other bullshit going in TN the name of security while everyone uploads their code to openai or anthropic because they’re pushing for it
So now I am hidden from IT, when those Sanitized Linux ditros start showing up they will build in the same bullshit as they have from win and Mac now and then I’m fucked, because they will force me to use them
What people don’t realize is, that every year is the Year of Linux Desktop. We just beat the previous year. It’s like having a new world record every year.
and by a lot, if the latest 5% on steam statistic turns out to be reliable.
Here’s one way that liberal fascism maintains control:
- Maintain control of everything
- If control is lost, create mass hysteria about “social media”, “kids,” “addiction”, “islam”, “immigration”, whatever, etc.
- Steamroll everything.
- Regain control.
It’s how they got TikTok, etc. It’s how they’ll try to get Lemmy, Linux, VPNs, etc. The wild part is how many lib “allies” will fully support this.
Yes, it’s a trap like everything else. It’s another front in the struggle.
Just to underscore what you said, this is achieved in FOSS via control of non-profit orgs & a monopoly on consumer chip architecture (for the time being)
The fascists’ weakness is their extreme overconfidence in everything they do.
Yeah “will to power” isn’t real. You end up hunting for the Holy Grail and shit
TikTok was a data harvesting surveillance tool from day one. It didn’t need to be ‘got’
Even if what you claim is true(its not), isnt that a much better way of maintaining control than other systems. Because without the spin you’re basically saying the “government tries to push its population in a desired direction via light influence”.
The problem lies in direction and methods.
Direction: toward greater wealth consolidation.
Methods: fear, lies, fostering ignorance, fostering political disinterest, truth embargo, surveillance, overclassification, embezzlement and other white collar crimes unpunished, eliminating the commons, paywalling all things, etc.
Both of those are huge problems that create unlivable societies.
The only proper direction is toward a legally mandated wealth ceiling plus a wealth floor plus enforced and publicly measured and publicly tested market competition to regulate maximum allowed wealth consolidation.
And of course truth has to be the informational currency. And rights. And privacy for the small players, with heavy oversight for the large players because large is dangerous.
We can’t lose the big picture here. Of course the governments must govern, but toward what ends and with what methods matters hugely.
Can you give me an example of this happening in real life so I can understand what you mean? I dont see that at all as liberal politician thing. To me it comes off as listing a bunch of things you dont like then labeling it liberal.
Edit: Never mind just realized what instance this taking place on. No point in continuing this discussion.
you are absolutely correct in what you are getting at, i just chuckled when you went like “here’s how they maintain control: they maintain control”
The floor here is made of floor
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It is a myth, always has been. But the worry isn’t the “Year of Linux” happening, it’s the corporate version of it being forced on us via regulation.
