Anonymous-OS !

[#1]

[quote=BBC News]More than 26,000 people have downloaded an operating system which members of the Anonymous hacker group claim to have created.
The software is based around a version of the open-source operating system Linux and comes outfitted with lots of website sniffing and security tools.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-17381214

[#2]

I think anyone who knows how to do anything useful with a bunch of security tools isn't going to need to have them pre-installed on Linux for dummies.
They don't appear to offer any source code nor even a link to where to get it, the project is listed on sourceforge as GPLv3, but the Linux kernel itself is licensed as GPLv2 (and not any later version).
Presumably someone is going to analyse the contents of the .iso for any hidden nasties / trojans / backdoors etc.

[#3]

Quote from: Sourceforge

However, as the day progressed, various security experts have had a chance to take a look at what’s really in this distribution, and verify that it is indeed a security risk, and not merely a distribution of security-related utilities, as the project page implies.

Although the sourceforge announcement just links back to the BBC article, which doesn't have any details of what's been found in the .iso.

[#4]

SourceForge pulls off fake, 'Trojan-wrapped' Anonymous OS tool. AnonOps: Distro is nothing to do with us...

Quote

Prominent members of Anonymous have said that a open-source distro bearing the hacktivist group's moniker is nothing to do with them and is likely to be riddled with Trojans. Anonymous OS Live – supposedly an Ubuntu-based OS, which advertises itself as being pre-loaded with various hacking tools and utilities (Tor, John the Ripper, SQL Poison etc) – appeared on SourceForge at the start of the week. The 1.5GB package achieved 37,000 downloads before SourceForge pulled the plug on Thursday afternoon, citing its "intentionally misleading name" and security concerns. The person who uploaded the alpha software said that "Anonymous-OS Live is an Ubuntu-based distribution and created for educational purposes, to checking [sic] the security of web pages". However accounts such as AnonOps described the distribution as a fake, which is pre-loaded: but with viruses and Trojans rather than hacking tools. "The Anon OS is fake it is wrapped in trojans. RT," A tweet by AnonOps warns.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/03/16/anon_os_trojan_fears/

[#5]

I've still not seen any analysis of what the .iso actually contained, and of course now you can't download it to take a look yourself.
All that's been said is along the lines of: you don't know who's produced it, so you can't trust them, so it might be full of bad stuff. You could say that about any piece of software really - even if you have the source code, most people don't have the time or ability to check through all of it!
Wouldn't it have been more subtle to create another "Linux for dummies" distribution, that claims to be even easier to install than the lastest trendy distro, has been even more pre-tweaked, or has even better programs pre-installed - and sneak a backdoor into that?