#Systemd Adds #Age #Verification & #Reddit #Linux Censors Age Verification Posts

Plus: Which Open Source Operating Systems plan to include Age Verification? The Lunduke Journal compiles a list.

Does It Age Verify?:
https://github.com/BryanLunduke/DoesItAgeVerify

https://lunduke.com

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M3erhbwqIAM

Lennart Poettering
#microsoft #stalking #surveillance #backdoor #trojan

SystemD Root Access Exploit Found, Devuan Team Calls SystemD "Unicorn Sh*t"

"Yet another high severity #systemd bug in #Ubuntu. Let us wish all #Devuan users a wonderful day out with their family, instead of shoveling unicorn sh*t."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_yukEnElXUg

Lennart Poettering
#microsoft #Linux #stalking #surveillance #backdoor #trojan

antiX 26 Released as Systemd-Free Debian 13 Distro with Five Init Systems

antiX Linux 26 arrives based on Debian 13 Trixie with five init systems, a systemd-free design, and a fast, lightweight environment built for efficiency.

🔗 Source: https://linuxiac.com/antix-26-released-as-systemd-free-debian-13-distro-with-five-init-systems/

#debian #systemd #linux #distro

#waydroid in Linux is the best way to run Android apps on your PC, and it's not close

Running Android apps on my PC used to feel wrong, but Linux makes them feel right at home, and it's better than any Windows solution.

🔗 Source: https://www.xda-developers.com/linux-best-way-run-android-apps-on-pc-until-gaming/

#linux #android

📰 Fedora Project Leader Suggests Linux Distros Could Adopt Apple's Age Verification API

He thinks a cross-distro API standard can be a practical solution to tackle age verification.

🔗 Source: https://feed.itsfoss.com/link/24361/17306020/fedora-leader-suggests-age-verification-api

#fedora #linux #distro

CachyOS Censors "Radicals" Opposed to Age Verification

In response to concerns about #Age #Verification features in #SystemD, the #CachyOS team says, "If you don’t want to use SystemD find another distribution," tells users to "STOP being radical".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJN6UWZPrzk

#Linux #trojan #backdoor #stalking #surveillance

#Ubuntu Now Has Higher System Requirements Than #Windows

As of this month, Ubuntu #Linux requires 2X the CPU speed and 50% more RAM than Windows 11

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=COIYdcrFnnU

Speed of Sound

#Voice #typing for the #Linux desktop:

Features
Offline, on-device transcription powered by Whisper, Parakeet, Canary, and more. No data leaves your machine.
Multiple activation options: click the in-app button or use a global keyboard shortcut.
Types the result directly into any focused application using Portals for wide desktop support (X11, Wayland).
Multi-language support with switchable primary and secondary languages on the fly.
Works out of the box with a built-in multilingual Whisper model. Download additional models from within the app to improve accuracy and language coverage.
Optional text polishing with LLMs (Anthropic, Google, OpenAI), with support for a custom context and vocabulary.
Supports self-hosted services like vLLM, Ollama, and llama.cpp (cloud services supported but not required).

Getting Started
The easiest and recommended way to install Speed of Sound is from Flathub or from the Snap Store. Alternatively, AppImage, Deb, and RPM packages are also available from the releases page.
For initial configuration, troubleshooting, and other resources, visit speedofsound.io

#stt

Speech Note

#Linux desktop and #Sailfish OS app for note taking, reading and translating with offline #Speech to Text #stt, Text to Speech #tts and Machine #Translation

https://github.com/mkiol/dsnote
MPL-2.0 license
https://github.com/mkiol/dsnote#how-to-install

Speech Note let you take, read and translate notes in multiple languages. It uses Speech to Text, Text to Speech and Machine Translation to do so. Text and voice processing take place entirely offline, locally on your computer, without using a network connection. Your privacy is always respected. No data is sent to the Internet.

Speech Note uses many different processing engines to do its job. Currently these are used:

Speech to Text (STT)
Coqui STT (a fork of Mozilla DeepSpeech)
Vosk
whisper.cpp
Faster Whisper
april-asr

Text to Speech (TTS)
espeak-ng
MBROLA
Piper
RHVoice
Coqui TTS
Mimic 3
WhisperSpeech
Kokoro
Parler-TTS
F5-TTS
S.A.M.

Machine Translation (MT)
Bergamot Translator

#Ubuntu #Linux Goes All-In on #AI

"Al features will be landing in Ubuntu throughout the next year," says Ubuntu VP.

#PS5 #Linux #Steam PC vs Native PS5, Oblivion Remastered Still "Broken"
DF Direct Weekly #262

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W8QDhsOmJ8A

Dirty Frag: Unfixed Root #Exploit Makes All #Linux Systems Vulnerable

Due to a broken embargo, this severe root exploit has no patches available for any Linux distribution. Ubuntu, RHEL, openSUSE... they're all vulnerable.

California Tried Age-Checking Linux — Then Rewrote the Bill | Tech Privacy, News Explained

California’s age-verification law was already controversial because it pushed age checks down into the operating system layer — not just websites, not just apps, but the device itself.

Now California is moving to change that.

AB 1856 proposes an open-source exemption to the state’s Digital Age Assurance Act, meaning many #Linux distributions may no longer be treated as “operating system providers” required to build age-check machinery into account setup.

That could mean no forced age prompt, no California age-signal API, and no need for many open-source operating systems to redesign their user systems around age categories.

But this is not a repeal.

The wider age-verification system remains. Commercial platforms like Windows, macOS, iOS and Android may still be covered, and the amended California wording also brings browsers and website operators more clearly into the age-signal chain...

#AgeVerification

📰 Arch Linux Now Believes Malware Incident Under Control: More Than 1,500 Affected Packages

The day started out with Arch Linux's AUR user-contributed repository seeing more than 400 packages compromised with malware. Now in ending out the day they believe all affected commits have been addressed. But it ended up being more than 1,500 affected packages...

🔗 Source: https://www.phoronix.com/news/Arch-Linux-AUR-More-Than-1500

#arch #linux

#Arch #Linux AUR Hit By Another Wave Of Now More Sophisticated Malware Attack

https://www.phoronix.com/news/Arch-Linux-AUR-More-Malware

Enjoy your tea, Hatters🎩

Today I want to share an interesting project with you: Ermine OS 🗻🦦. It’s a private live system based on Debian, created specifically for secure crypto operations 💲 and anonymous web browsing (for example, visiting forums)🌐.

Here is the repository: https://github.com/ermiusio/ermine_os

In addition to the system itself, the author has written a fairly long article that provides a detailed analysis of popular privacy-focused live distributions.

I particularly liked the breakdown of Tails OS🧅.
It explains the inner workings of the system "related to privacy"⚙️

For example, at the level of systemd services, scripts, and iptables, it shows how the killswitch works. It also covers issues with video memory (yes, this was a known problem, but I hadn't seen a breakdown of it in other reviews before). It even explains why Persistent Storage partially undermines the Tails concept itself and analyzes how application protection is implemented via AppArmor. It's a shame the author didn't go even deeper (for example, looking for backdoors in the source code), but overall, I hadn't seen such a high-quality review in Russian available publicly before.

The article also covers other "private live" systems like Whonix Live, Heads, Kicksecure Live, and so on.

And now about Ermine OS 🦦 itself:
The system runs entirely from a USB drive and writes almost nothing to the disk. All traffic goes exclusively through Tor with a kill-switch (if Tor were to suddenly fail, the network simply shuts down). There is an automatic MAC address and hostname changer. Among the applications, it includes Tor Browser with the author's own Fingerprint Spoofer plugin, a separate browser for I2P🚦, a separate i2pd with a GUI using zenity, and Cake Wallet.

Regarding security: it has custom AppArmor policies for all programs🔒, kernel hardening via sysctl, protection against cold-boot attacks using sdmem, and a completely disabled swap.

Additionally, the author has created an experimental option - RAM-mode which can be selected at boot. In this mode, the system continues to work even after the USB stick is removed, staying entirely within RAM.

The author has also prepared a detailed step-by-step guide on how to build your own live system in the second part of the article, plus they tested the killswitch and other important features.

The project looks quite interesting. Yes, it is still a bit rough around the edges, but as an article with a working example of a private live system, it is already excellent material.
It will be especially useful for beginners who want to build their own distribution for privacy purposes 🧩. There aren't many projects like this with decent articles and guides.

Of course, Heads also has documentation, but it's from 2017 and lacks such an in-depth comparison with other systems.

In general, big thanks to the author☝️ I don't understand why the repository is still so niche; in my opinion, it deserves much more attention. Alas, the article is written in Russian, and the author did not provide a translation. But I have translated it into English for them; enjoy it🌟

P.S. I only translated the md, the images are not included, but you can view the original tests and images in the github.

I hope you find it useful too ❤️

#anonymous_networks #crypto_protection #browsers #OPSEC #linux #i2p #privacy #tools #tor

Аrticle about private live Linux from the repository ermine_os translated into English

#anonymous_networks #OPSEC #linux #i2p #privacy #tools

📰 Raven Prism is a #Linux Computer That Happens To Be A Pair of #Glasses

This eye-controlled smart glass is a San Francisco-based startup's bet on ambient computing.

https://itsfoss.com/news/raven-prism-linux-smart-glass/

#Linux devices have a unique identifier called machine-id. Here is how to change it.

Posted on February 24, 2021

What is a machine-id, and why should you randomize it? From the machine-id man pages, it is defined as:

This ID uniquely identifies the host. It should be considered “confidential”, and must not be exposed in untrusted environments, in particular on the network. If a stable unique identifier that is tied to the machine is needed for some application, the machine ID or any part of it must not be used directly.
https://www.man7.org/linux/man-pages/man5/machine-id.5.html

In an effort to promote privacy, having a unique and unchanging identifier tied to your device seems like the wrong approach. It’s quite possible that poorly coded or even maliciously coded software could fetch this ID from your system. Let’s make sure that even if that does happen, that the value is constantly changing so that your device can not be uniquely identified as your device.
This is an incredibly simple and quick adjustment to your default Linux system. What we’re doing is showing you how to either adjust this value manually by hand, or by running a cronjob to change this value every minute with a new, randomized value.
Before we begin, a disclaimer: We’ve tested this on our own work desktops and development environments and I’ve tested it on my daily driver desktop. We have not found that anything has ‘broken’ because of this, but this is untested in many environments and may not be suitable for your use. It’s always reversible if you later wish to continue with a single, uniquely identifying ID attached to your device(s).
Debian / Ubuntu systems
To check your machine-id, open up your terminal and enter the following:
cat /etc/machine-id
The output should look a little something like this:
a9976154f0084a3782892638656ad9fd
You’ll note that this value is also stored in /var/lib/dbus/machine-id and that a symlink between the two exist. Any change to one file, will be reflected in the other.
me@virtbox-testing:~$ cat /etc/machine-id a9976154f0084a3782892638656ad9fd me@virtbox-testing:~$ cat /var/lib/dbus/machine-id a9976154f0084a3782892638656ad9fd
If you reboot your device, you’ll notice that this value remains unchanged. So, let’s change it ourselves!
Method 1: Manually.
Method 2 is automatically, every minute, as ran by a cron-job. If you don’t want to fully commit to that, you can change your machine-id by hand manually whenever you feel like it.
Step 1, remove the old machine-id file.
sudo rm /etc/machine-id
Step 2, recreate the machine-id file.
sudo systemd-machine-id-setup
Step 3, confirm that /etc/machine-id (and /var/lib/dbus/machine-id) now show a new value, different from the original.
cat /etc/machine-id && cat /var/lib/dbus/machine-id
That’s it! You should see two lines in your output with matching IDs that differ from the original machine-id you had in the beginning.
me@virtbox-testing:~$ cat /etc/machine-id && cat /var/lib/dbus/machine-id a78badce3e73beced163bbef7e55232a a78badce3e73beced163bbef7e55232a
You’ve changed your device’s uniquely identifying machine-id. This change will survive device reboots and will remain the same until you create a new one.
Method 2: Changing every 1 minute, automatically.
If the above didn’t satisfy your needs, than feel free to automate the creation of a new machine-id by creating a cronjob entry that will generate a new ID every minute.
Step 1, open up your crontab file.
sudo crontab -e
Step 2, enter at the bottom of the file the following:
*/1 * * * * sudo rm /etc/machine-id && sudo systemd-machine-id-setup
Save and Exit.
Step 3, wait a minute and confirm that your machine-id value has changed:
cat /etc/machine-id && cat /var/lib/dbus/machine-id
You should see two new matching values, that differs from the original value you had at the start. Wait a minute and run the step 3 command again, and you’ll see that these values have changed.

The #Lunduke #Linux Distro - No Age Verification, No AI, No Weird Politics

The Lunduke Computer Operating System has No #Systemd, No Forced #Rust Clones, & a "Code of Ethics" quoting the Bible.

The Lunduke Computer Operating System:
https://github.com/BryanLunduke/LCOS

https://lunduke.com
@TheLundukeJournal