This, I assume? https://github.com/frida/frida That is indeed a bit eyebrow-raising. Though they do offer pre-built binaries.

Also for stuff like this, I can highly recommend the Nix package manager, even if you are not on NixOS. There it would, for example, just be nix run nixpkgs#frida-tools, from any distro.

But I know you’re not OP. Would actually be interesting what exactly they tried to install.

pip and cargo are not intended as (system) package managers. Your target package may of course have dependencies on them, but from the way you described it it sounds like that’s what you attempted?

This doesn’t make a call to government servers.

The app (or desktop application BTW, incl. Linux) reads your national ID’s NFC tag, once. When you need to prove your age, the app locally computes a zkp that only tells the site “at least 18yo yes/no”.

Note that every EU country has a form of national ID, and the digital capabilities of these IDs are already used for a bunch of stuff (e.g. taxes, bank account creation,…). This doesn’t worsen the privacy situation for EU citizens, but instead ensures that no privacy-unfriendly solutions emerge.