Comments on: Anonymosus-OS: the checksums that don't check out

By: SamSam

SamSam — Wed, 21 Mar 2012 18:37:00 +0000

None. One’s a typo by Cory that has persisted through three posts.

By: Guest

Guest — Tue, 20 Mar 2012 02:23:00 +0000

Of course it’s fake. The real variant will be called EXPECT_OS

By: Bob Webb

Bob Webb — Mon, 19 Mar 2012 19:24:00 +0000

What’s the difference between Anonymosus-OS and Anonymous-OS?

By: C W

C W — Mon, 19 Mar 2012 18:02:00 +0000

With a however many million Anon, there’s bound to be a few thousand naive followers that’ll check it out.

By: SomeGuy

SomeGuy — Mon, 19 Mar 2012 17:27:00 +0000

What’s this file /etc/kernel/fbi/gonna/nail/yer/ass.ha_ha_ha?

Never mind. I’m sure it’s nothing.

By: Rah El

Rah El — Mon, 19 Mar 2012 13:34:00 +0000

Actually you can click on this link for a really cool, penetration test-centered OS based on Ubuntu:
http://www.backtrack-linux.org/

By: Lee Dannascher

Lee Dannascher — Mon, 19 Mar 2012 04:45:00 +0000

this is the sort of thing which might be fun to run on a neighbors network with a packet sniffer and just let it cook for a while.
Really, it’s just about trust. FOSS is safer (i’d say) simply because there’s more eyes on the code. these allegations can be brought and they’ll be proven or thrown out. We have no such safety with a microsoft, apple (or google) product.

By: Anon_Mahna

Anon_Mahna — Mon, 19 Mar 2012 03:47:00 +0000

or not paranoid enough to suspect it’s a ringer put out by an Alphabets agency. Yes i know that is probably giving them too much credit, but hey ‘even a blind squirrel finds a nut’ as they say.

By: SamSam

SamSam — Mon, 19 Mar 2012 02:39:00 +0000

No, it’s a Cory thing, for reasons he hasn’t ever explained why. The project itself is just called Anonymous-OS with no extra ‘s’. And that’s the way all the rest of the press has described it.

I think Cory just typoed in the first post and has decided to keep it that way ever since (Cory isn’t the best at admitting mistakes here… ;)

By: Jo Shields

Jo Shields — Mon, 19 Mar 2012 00:07:00 +0000

LOIC is C#. It runs fine with Mono. It doesn’t build with Mono, because the developers are jackasses who closed by simple bugfix as WONTFIX.

By: digi_owl

digi_owl — Sun, 18 Mar 2012 22:51:00 +0000

Not sure, but i guess LOIC could run under Wine.

By: Rob

Rob — Sun, 18 Mar 2012 21:32:00 +0000

From what I saw in another review of it, yeah, it’s heavy handed. The sum up of it was Anonymous didn’t do it because they wouldn’t want their name associated with something done this badly.

Of course, I thought LOIC was VB, so maybe that’s wrong.

By: saurabh

saurabh — Sun, 18 Mar 2012 19:46:00 +0000

I am unable to understand why, in the wake of the whole FBI/Sabu clusterfuck, anyone would even consider running this thing.

By: unaboomer

unaboomer — Sun, 18 Mar 2012 10:28:00 +0000

Is it wrong to root against the script kiddies? Not that Im some 1337 haxor, but come on.

By: elix

elix — Sun, 18 Mar 2012 10:00:00 +0000

Because Anonym.OS was already taken, I imagine.

By: MrEricSir

MrEricSir — Sun, 18 Mar 2012 07:30:00 +0000

Some of these tools are already in the Ubuntu repos and/or PPAs, meaning you don’t need the terminal. Ubuntu Software Center or Synaptic would work fine.

Of course, you will need the terminal to use some of the apps but that’s a different story. Hacking tools ain’t for noobs.

By: Incipient Madness

Incipient Madness — Sun, 18 Mar 2012 05:38:00 +0000

If you already use Ubuntu as I do you could snag all these functions from reliable sources using the terminal window. And if you have to use a clickable ling to get this OS, it’s fake.

Every Ubuntu user knows you can’t click for the cool stuff. Terminal only.

By: Chloramphenicol

Chloramphenicol — Sun, 18 Mar 2012 04:37:00 +0000

I'm sure it's been said before, but I'm going to say it again anyway... BackTrack.

By: zarray

zarray — Sun, 18 Mar 2012 03:05:00 +0000

http://i.imm.io/jjd7.jpeg

By: zarray

zarray — Sun, 18 Mar 2012 02:50:00 +0000

I imagine they look like this
http://static.fjcdn.com/pictures/Noob+Kid_cd732d_3302770.jpeg

By: twiddl

twiddl — Sun, 18 Mar 2012 02:22:00 +0000

why would anyone want to use that thing?

By: fuzzyfuzzyfungus

fuzzyfuzzyfungus — Sun, 18 Mar 2012 02:08:00 +0000

That would protect your system(barring some very fancy VM exploit that would be worth so much for precision attacks on high value targets that they can likely be ignored here); but it wouldn’t solve the “if you are going to tamper with the OS, you should probably bug the tools that somebody would use to check for tampering” problem.(though freezing the VM and mounting its disk any time that suited you wouldn’t be so terribly difficult, and it’s easier than finding a physical computer with a CD-ROM drive, at least in my house.)

By: Doug Nelson

Doug Nelson — Sun, 18 Mar 2012 02:05:00 +0000

No one ever explained the deliberate misspelling. Is it an SEO thing?

By: MrEricSir

MrEricSir — Sun, 18 Mar 2012 01:45:00 +0000

I’m assuming the packages weren’t built by Launchpad then?

By: digi_owl

digi_owl — Sun, 18 Mar 2012 01:37:00 +0000

Kinda heavy handed of them to change the files rather than creating an alternate theme alongside the Gnome default. If that is what they have done. Or could it be a cause of steganography?

By: rageaholic

rageaholic — Sun, 18 Mar 2012 00:50:00 +0000

virtualization. perhaps you’ve heard of it. it’s a thing.

By: fuzzyfuzzyfungus

fuzzyfuzzyfungus — Sun, 18 Mar 2012 00:38:00 +0000

I certainly have no reason to trust this particular spin; but you’d expect a fair number of changes in UI-related packages and package install lists. It does, after all, look different and have different packages installed…

The risk I’d be inclined to worry about would be anything that simply doesn’t have an analogous package in Ubuntu(or isn’t installed via a package at all: package management is a convenience, there is no enforcement against manually added stuff).

There would be nothing stopping somebody from, say, using a dead-stock Ubuntu kernel, MD5s right from the factory; and loading a bugged kernel module stashed manually in the filesystem somewhere. Modifying the package directly would be deeply suspicious; but there is absolutely no requirement that all kernel modules be provided by the package that has ‘kernel-modules’ somewhere in the name.

Kernel modules would just be an example, of course, a suitably clever and malicious actor could overlay enough goodies to compromise the system in all sorts of places without touching the packages or package manager at all…

By: Daemonworks

Daemonworks — Sun, 18 Mar 2012 00:34:00 +0000

That’s exactly what I was wondering about.

By: dnebdal

dnebdal — Sun, 18 Mar 2012 00:30:00 +0000

Spending another 20 seconds or so before submitting on weeding out all the obviously harmless changes would have made for a more compelling post, ye. :)

There are a few things I’d like to see a bit more about, though. In no particular order:
usr/sbin/update-initramfs
usr/sbin/anacron
usr/sbin/update-icon-caches
usr/bin/perldoc
usr/lib/ubiquity/user-setup/user-setup-apply
usr/share/ubiquity/apt-setup

At this point I’d be surprised if there was anything dodgy in any of them, but still.

By: onereader

onereader — Sun, 18 Mar 2012 00:22:00 +0000

.mo files are i18n (translations), .desktop files are more or less launchers, then some changelogs and image files. apt-setup is from ubiquity, the livecd installer, so it seems that most of the changes are due to the media customization.

I wouldn’t use it, but there’s nothing immediately suspicious there.