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Hoax? Blake Messick Claimed He Hacked Neighbor’s Unsecured Wireless Printer – Printed 10 Words, Got New Free Printer

By Paula Mooney
Published on: 13:48 PST, Jan 2, 2017

Blake Messick is teaching everyone a very funny lesson in leaving a wireless printer unsecured — and living close enough to a guy like Blake, who apparently knows how to access said unsecured wireless printer and send funny things to that WiFi-enabled printer.

Blake knows how to weave a creative hoax in a manner that helped Messick get a lot more Twitter followers. Messick seems like a script writer or a copywriter — what with the 10 words that Blake claimed he sent to his neighbor’s printer that apparently scared the neighbor so badly that he or she tossed the printer. It all began with the below tweet, wherein Messick describes noticing that his neighbor got a new wireless printer that was left unsecured. Just like any other wireless device that can be accessed if there is no security password, the unsecured wireless printer was brought to life by Blake when he sent the following words to his neighbor’s printer.

“Hello – I am your printer. I have become self-aware. Run.”

The original tweet from Blake was published on Friday, December 30. Since that time, Messick has gotten nearly 50,000 likes on Twitter and nearly 40,000 retweets.

But that’s not where Blake’s adventure ended. By the next day, Messick had posted an update. “What’s this?” Blake asked in a Snapchat-style text overlay. Messick reported that his neighbor had tossed the unsecured wireless printer out with the trash. The printer appeared in the front of the home, next to a too-perfect bag of trash in a black bag, directly in Blake’s line of sight. Those who read this viral report might be wondering if Messick doesn’t work for some sort of viral marketing campaign that’s a PSA for securing your wireless printer with a hard-to-hack password — or securing your printer with any password at all.

Whether Blake’s viral tweets are true or not, Messick is definitely getting attention. Blake’s tweet showing the photo of the wireless printer being tossed out with the trash has gotten more than 25,000 likes on Twitter. The below photo on Messick’s Twitter account showing the wireless Epson printer in Blake’s house — probably secured with a WiFi password — has also gotten more than 25,000 likes on Twitter.

Blake has tracked himself going viral, with Messick joking that he has ascended to “Twitter-god level.” Messick has written about getting more than 1,000 Twitter followers overnight, about making World Star, and writes that Buzzfeed is planning an article about Blake.

However, the doubters about Blake’s story are coming out, too, such as the below Twitter user, who commented that Messick likely faked the photo of the tossed-out printer with Photoshop.

: “It’s about how he faked an image of a printer on someone’s driveway using photoshop. Already contacting my people there. It was revealed to be fake. What was the purpose of lying like that?”

According to Fortune, hackers have hacked into printers before — with thousands of printers being hacked last year that belched out Nazi propaganda. Whereas Blake is celebrating the fact that someone created a Twitter Moment for Messick, even more interesting printers are in the works. As seen in the top photo above, a 3-D food printer is displayed. The Mobile World Congress wireless show in Barcelona, Spain, showed off the 3-D food printer in early 2016. With the “Internet of Things” enabling so many things with wireless connectivity — from toys to cars to toasters to refrigerators to printers and beyond — it is fascinating yet frightening to think of what could happen if Messick-style hacks were always true.

Especially the thought of hacking into a 3-D food printer and causing any type of disruption with food being printed.

[Featured Image by Manu Fernandez/AP Images]

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