Puzzle - First to solve wins

For years I've had an idea in my head about a way to hide some information in a bunch of numbers. I actually got around to coding an implementation and figured I'd run a competition. The first person who figures out what the famous landmark is described by the second set of numbers below and posts the correct answer in the comments wins $100.

The hint

Here's a hint. The following numbers are a reference to the Eiffel tower:

4843428915
7523700159
0833884650
0626330387
7033927944
0643339334
4338993898
5026866656
4813711731
7130413003
9425995428
9966619650
9367474696
5252152140
4949794797
8404672490
8968654696
4436494457
4426575716
6712994748
8890444049
1759517757
5479656999
6108266282
6659771956
6778548991
8499725340
7859508965
6858781476
6679230875
5001635437
9206284511
6285534517
2391535548
7587238517
7224714721
0577787527
4555555145
3231212318
3385338533
2420020897
8943712053
1075856609
3164524392
5578214157
3131314133
4504051046
1959252899
2700220702
5753586357
7568843164
1225605823
5251912607
5955502540
7221565322
5574574455
7958888984
5251959929
8227778287
1365266555
7327747273
7117878117
3339393973
4111611162
7777778577
9946017277
0976917247
6990643577
6115498163
3998948173
6611651624
7977373792
8444284424
2211110112
6408554683
6199073614
2181374612
1671413423
0905854742
9588154683
9686889646
9200996304
3848131848
3733743723
3992339205
3280039326
6051846341
2932533303
8927149325
3177536843
8597405171
9882297498
9830419448
3937782262
3897183087
9847178484
7582272225
9632792963
3887083378
8090497490
8582746793
3486891479
4589232741
3586686311
0456765661
7832772725
8486266246
9189818181
0588258880
3156651316
1103011130
6555366358
3333565332
8586660558
1411110761
4331211538
4596760568
9792862150
3365165138
9428260158
8556589655
4445459149
8878478784
5897958179
3753373338
0329859134
1877778154
4222659338
1430373885
9423058148
1469702471
7299942474
6712529784
8036134476
1098038546
4144118446
7271729776
7402202474
9445539544
8338444383

The puzzle

Given the above hint, what famous landmark do the numbers below refer to?

0059246810
7188126647
4468957810
1220650842
9741057890
4443330840
5054556417
7226227622
5952929592
1033553010
6467565834
8666886802
5744744567
4333117443
9972796762
0986015742
0478046543
4152686766
5991467443
1608247762
0015150479
9986198446
0492150447
9931004491
0067098097
9989998493
2707750247
2010754071
4585808450
0909050409
1689519999
8540288054
3660963333
1194819314
8587355888
1140989370
1584821353
1694943082
1190881219
3664750528
1312532511
3777277263
2699090020
0721332011
8744174441
1741340779
4697515283
3697569502
3722272464
2722230885
9054192329
0127893779
4172294287
1244412004
4630091725
9495991394
1851713785
2602702679
0505095025
2122214227
6842854374
8392846565
1399187298
1349226827
5349143964
1859911959
0302820821
3943144193
5399599395
6749249772
0660800867
9202260922
6467440467
9005669504
9666576656
0572276454
5720800967
0972976469
3891446624
8737266657
2605101521
8587558558
3775276235
1709404407
4182558255
1577165059
4705923757
2705540668
3685226692
8582500325
6081200686
6625965569
8879118777
3143131433
7713934793
3019900988
0623111335
3045921152
8181900878
7643906289
5292969281
2998150863
9912962953
2532967953
9838700395
2888996298
3218728111
3592332922
5991889989
9237899273
6283268226
5193751119
4944744446
6403464660
2242112221
2993761483
4403778877
6298245238
2443771056
5443722012
7667777066
0555568525
8668668626
2958229285
6613531652
6202637026
0104931682
0607789686
6560868025
1218138226
2100377946
4244077301
9225778946
0357648956
8775099253
7213179271
0108868910
9990949350
9997797946
0090390023

Post the answer as a comment below. The first person to answer correctly with an acceptable explanation to how the answer was reached (rather than just a guess) wins $100, so make sure to use your correct e-mail address so I can contact you.

Note #1: People have noted that the numbers change whenever the page is reloaded. That's as expected. This puzzle is not an encryption as much as it is an obfuscation. That the numbers change is not important, as only the pattern in them will lead to the answer, which is of course constant.

Note #2: There was a bug in my post for a short while, which made the hint and puzzle basically the resolve to the same answer. This is fixed now. If you saved a copy the numbers before, just grab a fresh set.

Solved!

The second landmark was discovered by Batuhan Bozkurt, congratulations! The challenge has not yet been met entirely, though so I've decided to set a new challenge with the same method. The same $100 prize applies.

Redditor Bearasaurus has solved the final challenge too! For hints, check the followup post.

Tags:

Comments

Colin Edward

Big Ben

Steven Don

I'm afraid Big Ben is not it. But be sure to include some explanation as to how the answer was reached, so I know it isn't just a random guess.

Batuhan Bozkurt

I "solved" your puzzle, but I assume not in the way you wanted.

After giving it quite some hours, I failed to find any specific pattern (with a reasonable kolmogorov complexity) that would lead me to an answer. But in Reddit, you mentioned that you would be interested in statistical approaches that would lead to an answer (which I assume you are interested for increasing the security of the obfuscation?) so I exploited the fact that your website gives fresh batch of numbers at each reload so I grabbed about 1000 sets (with intervals in between, hopefully not causing trouble to your website, it handled the requests like a champ) and got to cracking.

Now your HTML formatting implies 10x10 blocks of data for each set. So that was a starting point when I first began looking at the problem. The grid is 70 x 20 so that implies 14 secret codes, 7 for each row.

I looked for what was common for each 10x10 block in each of the samples I gathered from your site. I found out that for each 10x10 block some digits occasionally never appears; for example in block 0x 0y, not all digits have to appear but one always appears at least once.

Once I looked at the remaining digits (that are common in all blocks at a particular coordinate), for the "hint", I was faced by these digits:

0485130
0021739

These are the coordinates in the form of degrees-minutes-seconds (dddmmss as you gave away generously in Reddit) of Eiffel Tower.

Once I ran the same process for the puzzle, the result was:

0295845
0310804

Which is the coordinates for the Great Pyramid of Giza.

Maybe this is disappointing, I don't know. If the website hadn't provided fresh batch of numbers, this method would not work. I assume, to strengthen the obfuscation, you could make sure one digit always appears at least once; but as long as the distribution isn't random, I suppose the answer could be extracted.

I've tried many approaches before this; I'm pretty confident that the pattern is not based on neighborhood relationships (as the answer can appear on edges, though wrapping around could be employed but still with it I failed to detect any patterns). I think it doesn't have anything (or much) to do with arithmetic on the digits (like summing / subtracting them). I tried various row/column patterns and couldn't come up with anything.

I also analyzed the 10x10 blocks containing the answer digits only once (so if the answer is 0 for that block, 0 appears only once in that block). But saw no obvious pattern at all. So this beats me in that regard.

If I am eligible for the prize for my answer, I would kindly ask you to donate it to the Doctors Without Borders foundation. If you are uncomfortable about it for some reason, you can choose to donate it somewhere else you see fit.

Thanks for the challenge, and although my curiosity has been partly satisfied, I'm still waiting for the answer that will allow me to solve this using a pen and paper using a single set of numbers.

Steven Don

Batuhan, the answer is indeed correct. The Great Pyramid of Giza is the one I was looking for. The method you used is indeed not the one I was hoping for, as you haven't actually figured out the way the coordinates are encoded into the sets of numbers.

Still, I'm not one to dictate how the problem should be solved. I will make a donation to Doctors Without Borders for $100 in your name and post proof that I have done so.

Since I would very much like for somebody to solve the method, I'm including this static problem for a second attempt, and another $100. Being in a comment, the following set obviously does not change and encodes a third landmark.

2626513077384364666346599932245309032974209496921885110948315551555613
6549028370497764766953274173448611231555969009312435020244378244262894
9308377132331493394457637801172312372974892873367485438142538547446457
5987478672136633636156339295109196283474021313920015080695500005010510
9318473400638833698356337893287640679475088481921818727043921551931599
5758758671181690400516397336912974972974211231362065019596695870416497
1701226107698865022553554534544375771374969996927993180831110067651597
3203310324331357320447629709425333533533932743923435767555759732852649
0008077080336367751344339394399228589625005440340517458583553308156594
7467243472134765226056779555595344734475199118911888022882025906466417
0332300493776667648725560571112261196221231229957486429403779342535143
1366338577707417047142278890548676887286598087756091175002210326130060
5863902088494574497542911473583959753975898054668946115111760583633056
3673921092972792959782223331128568968982838265801286279605628360969080
5301986352763553665223261861393193111359891776463941295493449120391390
0463999640662807648743557375531417213379281451584481179187119326988940
4352555243298062697573961379660934698929891289118894828988929160129317
1871110111741174649945428445570098658283038728302510575750510526949009
3326333663020967498782260828822839081251556075505536114445618120357157
5602990599311067698721073220721651596922796029092045295295550390501233

The challenge now is to find the answer and a step by step description of how to extract the correct digits from it.

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