A man has managed to nab himself a free printer using one simple (slightly immoral) method.

Blake Messick noticed that his neighbour's wireless printer was unsecured. Rather than sending the traditional 42 page PDF containing nothing but the word "chicken" to the print queue...

Full PDF here.

... Blake decided to do something a little different.

He sent a message to the printer, from the printer, saying "hello I am your printer I have become self-aware. Run." at 4am in the morning.

my neighbor just got an unsecured wireless printer, so I sent this to him pic.twitter.com/UxVdyLJTYv

— blake messick (@blakemessick) December 30, 2016

He printed the message from his neighbour's printer. How would you react if you saw this message? Maybe change your password? Turn the machine off and on again?

Not this neighbour. This neighbour thought his machine had gained sentience, turned it off, took it outside and threw that sentient being right into the trash.

@blakemessick update: my neighbor has thrown out the printer pic.twitter.com/OPoAFuJjZ5

— blake messick (@blakemessick) December 31, 2016

And with that, Blake had himself a free (non-sentient) printer.

@blakemessick And that's the story of how I got a free printer pic.twitter.com/DOJlS7jf39

— blake messick (@blakemessick) December 31, 2016

Most people thought that the whole thing was pretty funny (if a little immoral)...

.@blakemessick funny and geeky and awesome and all that, but do give it back. Tell neighbour you exorcised it for them..?

— Ebexanna Scrooge (@planetxanna) January 1, 2017

Although there's near universal agreement that this should have been his neighbour's reaction...

@blakemessick the correct reaction from your neighbor should've been: pic.twitter.com/UwIcxl3CyK

— O (@OGSportBlueVIs) January 1, 2017

So there you have it. If you want yourself a free printer, all you need is to pretend that printer has gained sentience at 4am in the morning and - boom - you have yourself a free printer. No more printing in the library.