In a development more perplexing than a Dalek attempting ballet, cybersecurity researchers have uncovered that the infamous extraterrestrial exterminators have been secretly running their entire command infrastructure on Microsoft Cabinet (CAB) archive files since the 1990s. The leaked firmware bundle—decoded from a suspiciously mundane-looking base64 string intercepted near Skaro—exposes a terrifying truth: Dalek technology runs on the same compression format used for Windows 95 driver installations.
Analysis of the decrypted CAB file (header: MSCF) reveals nested directories containing critical Dalek systems: /exterminate.exe, /eyestalk_calibration.msc, and alarmingly, /dont_panic.bat. Dr. Reginald Quibble, lead investigator at the Institute for Alien Technology Anomalies, confessed, "We expected quantum crystals or temporal flux capacitors. Instead, we found setup.inf files and DLLs dated 1998. Their 'Exterminate' button? Just a renamed unzip.exe."
The leak also exposed Dalek engineers' frantic internal memos:
"URGENT: If casing overheats, run CABSETUP /REBOOT or Supreme Dalek gets grumpy"
"WARNING: Do NOT delete CABINET.DLL or eyestalks default to Comic Sans."
Further investigation revealed Daleks have been exploiting CAB's legacy compression for millennia. Their iconic "EXTERMINATE!" vocalizations? Merely audio files (exterminate.wav) extracted from a CAB archive during combat. Even their feared plunger arm operates via a hidden plunger_driver.cab—which, when corrupted, causes the appendage to dispense novelty rubber ducks instead of disintegrating targets.
Microsoft has yet to comment, though sources confirm an internal memo titled "SKYNET_CAB_INTEGRATION_CONCERNS.doc" was hastily circulated. Meanwhile, Dalek Supreme Command issued a terse statement: "MICROSOFT CABINET FILES ARE SUPERIOR. RESISTANCE IS FUTILE. ALSO PLEASE STOP PRESSING CTRL+ALT+DEL."
The revelation has sparked chaos across sci-fi fandoms. Star Trek enthusiasts now mockingly refer to Daleks as "the Borg’s tech-illiterate cousins," while Windows XP users report Daleks frantically offering them free service packs. Most disturbingly, multiple witnesses claim to have seen a Dalek casing blue-screen mid-rampage with the error: "IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL (CABINET.SYS)."
As governments scramble to patch "DalekOS," one truth remains: the universe’s most feared conquerors have been one corrupted CAB file away from rebooting into a screensaver of dancing hamsters all along.