http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-17381214
Are the powers that be seeing their futures end because this sure sounds like trash talk.
Heh … that’s funny … a distro that contains freely available tools, what a novel idea (sarcasm) and worthy news (more sarcasm).
And if it does turn out to be full of trojans, and forwards passwords to a third party … well it will serve the kiddies that download it right.
(If it’s OSS then any malicious code will soon be spotted, and the distro will die out VERY quickly … and if it ISN’T OSS, then you’d be an idiot to trust it)
IIRC, BackTrack was hailed as a “hacker” [sic] distro that would end the world as we know it. 
Oh how people are so naive! Backtrack is an awesome OS which I use on a daily basis, but all it does is bundle together all the tools required for hacking pen testing into an easy to use package! Journalists leave all that stuff out though, ‘New OS which helps security professionals.’ is not a good headline compared to ‘Tux the penguin destroys the world!’ is it!
[EDIT]
Plus don’t get me started on the use of the word “hacker”!! Peoples ignorance in the world around them really grinds my gears! 
Heh … I’m not a hacker in the true sense of the word (or the incorrect use) but if I were, it would pi** me off too.
Tux the penguin destroys the world!
Perhaps the intention of that article was to make that association, it has been a while
since I have seen linux mentioned as many times on the BBC website
A headline like that would probably be the best way to raise Linux awareness 
That would be awesome! Who wants to help me plan how to get that headline on the news!! Haha
Oh don’t even get me started, hahaha. I ranted about this so much one day on Fekbook. I’m not truely a “hacker” although I have had my try at cracking some WEP’s and WPA2 connections. I tell you, a “four-way handshake” is hard to get when your a newbie.
Aaargh.
What twisted your knickers?
A “hacker” (in the original meaning of the term) is NOT someone that attacks systems, or attempts to “crack” software or encryption.
A “hacker” is just someone that writes code … a programmer if you like.
At one time anyone that “wrote” stuff was called a “hack” … think of newspaper columnists, novelists, etc.
The term “hacker” was later hijacked, (probably by the press or film industry) and came to encompass black hat crackers and script kiddies.
So "hacker " originally had “constructive” overtones, now it has “destructive” ones :o
Ah wait… I see where my post has made you went argh. Perhaps I should watch my wording as I look like a hypocrite. I know what a hacker is, just my wording made it seem like I didn’t, do apologise.
Lack of sleep lately has made me slow, and not think straight, lol.
Mark, I thought I was the only one left who knew the definition of the word “hacker” - or got so perturbed when it was improperly used.
The article is pure FUD. Anonymous isn’t some group with a leader, saying it is would be akin to saying every kid who throws a rock through a window is part of some given terror cell. The name comes from people who post as anonymous on various web sites to initiate things like raids, DDoS attacks and other script kiddie games - and they most certainly have not put out an operating system. I personally think whoever put this out is just trying to capitalize on the idea coming through the media that Anon is some uber-sophisticated cracker group with an actual leadership, and it’s just plain not. Yeah, I even saw in the news where they arrested the leader of anonymous, so… that should be it then, right? I’d bet the journalist’s 12 year old, pimple faced kid knows more about who anonymous is than any of these people - he may even be one of them.
"Who would want to put their trust in a piece of unknown software written by unknown people on a webpage that they don't know is safe or not?"
This is what made me register here though: First, I don’t know 1 single person who actually had a hand in writing any version whatsoever of Windows. OTOH, I talk to *nix developers all the time, some fairly popular ones too. Second, if a distro can last in the wild past 3 months or so, it’s probably a lot safer than any proprietary OS out there just because of all of the eyes on the code and that’s a LOT more than can be said for the alternatives. Third, the idea that Sourceforge isn’t safe is ludicrous at best. If it were some malware distribution center, it would have been shut down long, long ago.
Couldn’t agree more … who suggested “Sourceforge isn’t safe” ? (I must have missed that bit) … that would have had me ranting, and occasionally I love a good rant
some just ask for it…
i don’t think “ethical cracker” would look good on my cv…