Man Leaves Printer on Overnight—Can’t Cope With What He Wakes Up To

A man has left the internet hysterical after leaving his printer on overnight, only to find a funny surprise in the morning.

Rafa do Prado Mariana Oliveira (u/inkermakerzera), 20, from São Paulo, Brazil, works in administration and uses his Bluetooth printer daily for paperwork. When he forgot to turn it off one night, he was unexpectedly gifted a printout of a cat.

“I got confused then I started laughing my a** off. I decided to post it on the weird sub knowing it was something pretty random and people found it funny. It was probably was one of my neighbor’s shenanigans,” he told Newsweek.

The photo showed an A4-sized printout of a cat’s face, looking slightly bemused. The post tacked up 10,000 upvotes in the subreddit “weird.”

The Importance of Printer Security

While this prank was harmless, unsecured printers can pose a serious security risk. According to Impact My Biz, open printer networks can be exploited by hackers to gain access to sensitive data, waste resources, or even distribute malware.

Small and medium enterprises and individuals alike are advised to secure their printers with password protection, disable remote access when unnecessary, and keep their firmware updated to prevent unauthorized use.

Should You Leave Your Printer on Overnight?

According to Cartridge World USA, whether or not to leave a printer on overnight depends on its usage and type. For frequent use, keeping a printer on can reduce wear and tear from repeated power cycles. However, leaving it on while connected to an open network could expose it to security vulnerabilities, as illustrated by this viral Reddit post.

Reddit Reacts to the Prank

Redditors found the prank hilarious and shared their own experiences with printer mischief.

“Now I need to drive around and look for open printer networks to screw with people,” said one user.

“This is the hacker’s way of saying ‘put some damn security on your printer!'” said Plaston_. “Reckon your printer is visible on an open network, and this was someone having fun.”

“Be grateful though! They could’ve printed hundreds of pages of nothing but black ink. Got off lucky with the cat,” said one user.

“That cat looks like a French bulldog,” said another user.

Some users took inspiration from the post and reminisced about their own pranks.

“I just connected to my neighbor’s speaker and played ‘Never Gonna Give You Up’ by Rick Astley thank you for the idea,” said another user.

“I did with a few friends in IT-Class once. We saw that every printer was logged in the same network, so we printed out everything that we found on Google Pictures,” said another user reminiscing on their school days.

“They made us pay for all the paper wasted but is was worth to see absolute stress on the teacher faces when they couldn’t stop it. Good times.”