[benchaney]

The security impact is that if you allow a user to choose their own username, and you use a standard POSIX specified way of verifying that the username is valid, and at any point in time you run a service as that user, an attacker can gain root privileges.

[inferiorhuman]

Or if you have a package that generates a service user that starts with a digit. Then you'll be running an arbitrary service as root in which case any vulnerabilities become that much more serious. Or have things regressed so much with systemd that the standard is now verify each and every thing you have the init system do?

The other problem is, of course, the utter lack of understanding Lennart demonstrates by being so dismissive and the increased potential for systemd to be hiding future security vulns.