Last week’s Micro Softy about accurately predicting the future and phishing is a rough puzzle. Even for polished nerds. So this week, we’ll ease up with a simpler puzzle.

Two fathers and their two sons walked into the Bass Pro Shop in Memphis, Tennessee. Each man bought an AK47 rifle with ammunition and a 75-round drum magazine.

But all together, only three AK47’s were sold. How can this be?

Solution to Micro Softy 64: Old Time Phishing?

Last week’s Micro Softy was about an investment banker, Geardown Geko, who received anonymous tips forecasting the outcome of future events starting in 1948. After five correct predictions, the anonymous tipster, let’s call her Tipper, starts to charge money for her tips. Geko pays and makes lots of money by betting on Tipper’s predictions. She makes ten accurate forecasts in a row and then stops. Geko bets on the predictions and makes big bucks.

How is this considered phishing? As we’ll explain, Geko essentially won a small lottery. Multi-million state-run lotteries are often seen as a tax on stupidity. A typical rebuttal is that someone has to win! True, but that winner will never be you. If you don’t agree, let’s you and I make a bet on it.

Here’s what happened in Tipper’s phishing. She first mailed 1,024 predictions to different people for the 1948 Stanley Cup, half naming Toronto as the winner, half naming Detroit. After Toronto won, she only contacted the 512 who received the Toronto prediction, discarding the Detroit list forever. For the next round, she sent half of those 512 a prediction that the Baltimore Bullets would win the basketball championship, and the other half that the Philadelphia Warriors would win. When the Bullets won, Tipper had a perfect score with 256 recipients. She repeated this, halving her list size each time. By the tenth prediction, only two victims remained, including Geko, who, by chance, received the last correct prediction.

So last week’s Micro Softy was about the winner of Tipper’s phishing lottery. It was a type of phishing where in the end there was a single winner participant, Geko. Someone had to win. Everyone else who bet on the predictions eventually was a loser.

Of the 1024 starting players, only Geko walked away undefeated.

The phishing Micro Softy is based on an episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Season 3, episode 2 entitled “The Mail Order Prophet.”

The Monday Micro Softy is a weekly feature of Mind Matters News. Here are the links to all the puzzles and answers to date:

Monday Micro Softy 64: Old Time Phishing was about an investment banker, Geardown Geko, who received anonymous tips forecasting the outcome of future events starting in 1948. The solution is: The winner of Tipper’s phishing lottery. It was a type of phishing where in the end there was a single winner participant, Geko. Someone had to win. Everyone else who bet on the predictions eventually was a loser. You can find puzzles 55 through 64 here as well.

Monday Micro Softy 63: A Beggar’s Tale. Exceptional nerds are psychologists who see through surface actions. Such a skill is required to solve this Micro Softy. The solution to Freaky Bob’s strategy is: If he had taken the $10, he’d have lost repeat customers. Nobody would’ve been entertained. Choosing the $5 kept people coming back with more cash, proving far more lucrative for him in the long run. You can find puzzles 55 through 63 here as well.

Monday Micro Softy 62: The Ordeal of Sisyphus Fats. The best computer programmers and engineers must be good at scheduling. Last week’s Micro Softy tests this ability and the solution is that Sisyphus Fats took 98 minutes to push the large bowing ball to the top of the 100-foot hill. You can find puzzles 55 through 62 here as well.

Monday Micro Softy 61: Micro Softy Take Five was more of a trivia question than it was a puzzle. To solve Micro Softy 61, the answer is the theme for the Mission Impossible movie franchise starring Tom Cruz. You can find puzzles 55 through 61 here as well.

Monday Micro Softy 60: Here’s a puzzle from Gunsmoke Told to “get out of Dodge”after a shooting, a gunslinger does so at a nearly inexplicable time. Can you solve the puzzle?
To solve Microsofty 59, recall that direction of air flow is due to pressure — not size. Which tire is under more pressure? You can find puzzles 56 through 59 here as well.

Monday Micro Softy 55: “It happens every spring.” Baseball, that is. Here’s a puzzle that takes in baseball’s summer. To solve last week’s puzzle, you don’t need to know the distance. Check the problem again for the number you do need to know. You can find puzzles 51 through 54 here as well.

Monday Micro Softy 50: Cutting through the cornbread. How did Yuri Senior cut the cornbread into eight identical portions using only three straight cuts? You can guess the answer to Microsofty 49 if you try the test question yourself at home, using a small mirror. Links to Microsofties 46 through 49 are here as well.

Monday Micro Softy 45: Can Tony beat the fast-food curfew? An early curfew on fast food service motivated a boy to exercise more vigorously. But how fast was he pedaling? To solve Micro Softy 44, recall that Tony doesn’t need to take the individual pills each day, only the prescribed amount of each. You will find links here to Micros Softies 41 through 44 as well.

Monday Micro Softy 40: The fate of a false prophet. He wasn’t actually fired for being a false prophet but for something that his prophecy unintentionally revealed. The solution to Micro Softy 39 lies in considering an alternative possible meaning of a word commonly used in sports. You will also find links to Micro Softies 30 through 39 and their answers here as well.

Monday Micro Softy 29: A funeral lament in four lines. The funeral director was puzzled by Dan’s description of his relationship to the deceased but there was no question that his grief was sincere Here, you will also find links to Microsofties 22 through 29.

Monday Micro Softy 21: Finding More of the Deadly Fentanyl Pills. Here, you will also find links to Microsofties 11 through 20 as well.

Monday Micro Softy 11: What Happened to That Other Dollar? Here you will find links to the first ten Micro Softies. Have fun!