Duc "Jack" Nguyen[1] (born: September 24, 2004),[citation needed] better known online as Cuberates, is a YouTube channel containing short documentaries about computer viruses.
Activities[]
The first video of the YouTube channel was published in October 2016, called "Destroying Windows XP", showcasing a time-lapse of the process of altering Windows functionalities through use of computer viruses, harmful terminal commands, and exploiting minor Windows security flaws.
Throughout the years, the channel consistently published a great number of videos, many of which were short showcases of parody computer viruses submitted by supporters of the channel. In addition, an educational series, called "Cuberates Arduino", consisted of tutorials about the usage of the Arduino single-board microcontroller. However, the series abruptly stopped due to many long-term technical difficulties accumulated during production.
To further expand viewers' interaction, Nguyen, with an online friend, developed a Discord server, and a forum called "Cuberates File Discussion Forum", where viewers exchanged information, submitted files, etc. By the end of 2021, both platforms had been manually removed by Nguyen, and the reasons for deletion were addressed by him following his channel discontinuation.
The most popular upload during the channel's most active period was a hoax video named "666.com", which demonstrated a website supposedly hijacking the Windows XP operating system. Unfortunately, the video ended up receiving a considerable amount of backlash due to its spreading of false information, and unprofessional production values. The video still remains the most popular upload on the channel today (as of 2022).
Contributions[]
Apart from documenting pre-existing malware, Nguyen had also developed several computer viruses for educational purposes:
- TaskILL.exe - a small computer program that ejects the C:\ drive by exploiting a flaw in the commands of the Windows Command Prompt (CMD). Upon activating the malware, a textbox riddled with corrupted messages appears as the malware launches a background process that ejects the C:\ drive completely, making the operating system extremely unstable. The program was developed in 2018, using the VB programming language.
- CheatBreaker.exe - a malware that hijacks the Windows operating system in a humorous manner. It was first developed as a joke in the Minecraft community to protest the use of a supposedly ratted Minecraft client called "CheatBreaker Client". A great number of payloads of the malware were inspired by VineMEMZ, a popular trojan documented by many content creators at the time.
Nguyen had not released his work to the public until late 2020.
Discontinuation[]
By 2019, the channel had declined significantly in performance due to the rapid loss of consistency. In the same year, a large proportion of Nguyen's materials were also copyrighted by YouTube, rendering them unprofitable. The official discontinuation of the channel was announced in 2021, and the channel has since been used by Nguyen for exchanging unlisted videos with friends and relatives.
In Nguyen's announcement, he talked about taking a major step back from YouTube to focus on productive work. He also elaborated that his academic performance was affected by keeping the channel consistent. Along with that, he added: "At this point, I would consider myself a poser", mentioning that he had been aware of his knowledge for videos he had uploaded.
By the end of 2021, Nguyen had halted all activities on the Cuberates channel. The return of the channel is yet to be known.
References[]
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Cuberates (Duc Nguyen). GitHub.