This new Linux distro is breaking the law, by design…

I have a question for you. How old are you? Oh, I see. You don't want to answer because you're an anonymous internet user and that's your private life. Well, guess what? It's not going to be private much longer. But by January 1st, 2027, your operating system will need to know how old you are to connect to apps and websites on the internet. While you were focused on the Epstein files and all the arrests the government was making, your technocratic leaders around the world were all simultaneously busy with a new hobby, age verification laws. How's your new computer doing? >> Oh, good. >> Yeah. >> Yeah, I like it. Age verification is nothing new. Every time you want to support indie filmmakers or play games like GTA 6, you need to lie on an age verification form like this. But that will soon become a thing of the past because age verification is moving down to the operating system level. That means anytime you get a new computer or phone, Windows, Mac OS, Android, or Linux will be legally required to collect your age. And not just that, but they also must provide an API where developers can query your age as the primary source of truth for access control on apps and websites. It's yet another big win for big tech. But luckily, a hero has emerged. A single new Linux conversion script that says this aggression will not stand. >> This will not stand. This will not stand. This aggression. >> In today's video, you'll learn about ageless Linux and the battle against OS level age verification. It is March 20th, 2026, and you're watching the code report. Back in October 2025, the Digital Age Assurance Act was passed into law in California, and it makes it a legal requirement to collect a user's age on any general purpose operating system. And that puts the primary responsibility on Apple, Microsoft, and yes, Linux. Now, of course, this happened in California with every single lawmaker voting for it. And of course, the reason to take away your privacy is to quote protect the children. As a parent, I'm all about protecting children, but parental control is already a solved problem. It's trivial for parents to monitor and control the content their kids consume. And OS level age verification won't change anything. So, what is it really all about? Well, the endgame here is to turn every device you own into something that only works when you log in and prove who you are. Your cell phone, your Wi-Fi router, and your smart toilet won't work, unless, of course, you've age verified with your Apple, Facebook, or Google account. Once everything is connected and authenticated, it creates a system where every action from browsing the internet to grabbing a beer from your smart fridge can be tracked by default. In other words, it's just a Trojan horse for mass surveillance. On top of that, it creates a compliance mode for these big tech companies that hurts small developers and only benefits the massive corporations. Meta spent millions of dollars lobbying in California to pass this law with OpenAI as a co-sponsor. Apple and Microsoft are just chilling on the sidelines as indirect beneficiaries. But the Linux community has mostly been silent and confused except for this one chaos agent called ageless Linux. It's a new DRO or actually no, it's just a script that is vowed to violate all age verification laws. Even though violating the law is uh against the law. To get started breaking the law yourself, all you have to do is run this script on any Debianbased distro like Ubuntu or Kali Linux. This script will modify the OS release metadata about your system. Then it will install some documentation telling the state of California that we will not comply with AB1043. It'll then deploy an age verification API that doesn't work. Congratulations, you just became an operating system provider. Legally, you are a person who controls the operating system software. If a child uses this operating system, you are required by section 1798.501 501 subsection A clause 1 to provide an accessible interface at account setup that collects their age. Unfortunately, add user in Linux does not do this is so you could be fined $7,500 for any child in California who uses your operating system. When I was a kid growing up in California, the internet was a utopia of anonymity. But sadly, my kids won't even be able to use the internet without being first approved by big tech bouncers. On the bright side though, at least my kids will be able to write way better code than I ever could in the future, thanks to awesome tools like Code Rabbit, the sponsor of today's video. It's already the best AI code review tool out there. And they just launched a new feature that solves one of the biggest issues of our time, human conflict, or I mean merge conflicts. So instead of context switching between branches and trying to figure out what each side is trying to accomplish, the code rabbit automatically detects any conflicts during pull request review and analyzes the intent behind both versions of the conflicting code from first principles. Then it pushes one unified commit to your branch that resolves everything. And if it's too ambiguous, Code Rabbit will decline and flag it for a manual review instead of just guessing. Try out Code Rabbit today for free at the link below. This has been the Code Report. Thanks for watching and I will see you in the next one.

CodeRabbit can automatically resolve merge conflicts in your PRs - https://coderabbit.link/fireship Free forever for any open source project. On January 1st, governments will start forcing users to verify their age at the operating system level on all internet-enabled devices. But one brave Linux script is daring to fight back against the mighty surveillance state… #linux #coding #programming Want more Fireship? 🗞️ Newsletter: https://bytes.dev 🧠 Courses: https://fireship.dev