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:
0420024040
0200802238
5151342135
6446550644
2660250635
0809840025
0737600022
7164522140
2002754128
5850858565
8931001901
6302565622
2188912898
8154962289
2801567178
8578822956
2914562242
5302973867
1249138671
7082910621
1038132079
1563639520
3359138519
0870882020
3636663691
9597559072
1669916629
2771855967
9797117108
8716879345
2797526164
2736173927
8781818888
2774547752
5197611775
9711111197
7759519587
3837323767
5757552577
9555995043
7556693067
9132592547
4129597467
4263093749
0067325517
6706368073
9911951399
9909579598
3322553421
7535819359
7928263499
1033617028
7047453093
6430863358
0520473941
6696833246
9472933039
9492873137
7447774540
9991443099
6103330106
9799973932
0772007247
5208110632
1686502331
2389106139
5334670391
3998396398
9904903949
1101910991
3322222632
1176175121
5178730959
9971513436
5116555207
9742782849
4973733379
9014515414
5141658511
9702197727
5996559596
0669463966
0417568365
6342045265
7236815265
1622111265
6366663366
1995515953
2554228592
1999395139
3287835131
4157572143
0267370881
4108418841
1103130131
9108810981
7444478443
4494555349
9458581859
9044114990
0455640652
4622285226
9839998399
6349838696
7555685599
7477745721
1813195252
3604548621
9504739698
6124299347
2155536011
6251167327
2824552858
1553255131
5275272262
6607766077
9151111191
1875485577
0080100018
8571118181
8055358098
0035361898
2875442698
1085192728
8051127454
8535193737
The puzzle
Given the above hint, what famous landmark do the numbers below refer to?
5785188811
7897289788
0786966638
0157551155
0185943623
1697099025
1795271648
0692588200
0679511792
3737377993
3483448354
2718288127
6171916079
4907678073
5670148197
8280899129
6657246407
9621136059
7577787775
4444545504
5633386673
1551511576
2389017576
5729785773
9017489674
9346969274
7303741574
8107126442
3159058470
2025636947
8454234472
3353334791
6242426424
2499456942
2225222245
7774748177
4247472747
2522622222
2106442040
6879116178
3276105325
5599648212
6605403671
4877194477
2822441100
6724568434
5497764332
8096064183
0291414464
7277118172
3733367333
4812114482
4143619464
4964664869
0445238352
5565849367
0089836313
3851650677
6362336262
6767769677
8189958119
1349040113
8080380300
2868182406
7345226502
0216340666
5795632560
8014110416
0159010965
6626886582
3320136102
2200622660
8851455411
3310076428
8433151452
5010851501
6833336308
1255555552
7447475471
1112421418
8699369388
7698140944
5296191806
2294209881
7881163269
8098111181
3211212113
5897353975
2621862126
7084742408
6672326637
5980090250
1117113717
0622330026
0449893030
4129330630
4206110697
7247633227
9552520256
5595225595
8777788776
2232828157
2227772202
5660672202
9712228299
2680327702
0556078156
1587928162
0718672011
5085552011
9030243107
0608672253
5352152513
0631443206
1801118051
2227172212
9998189111
7637333877
1636063666
8564115114
7726772677
7234100993
8684000401
0637077091
8767086343
7636720835
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.
Comments
Big Ben
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.
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.
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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