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:
3402444444
6935753376
3986233822
4386556563
4286709830
5413552960
3203410489
3266140604
3906266315
5995334733
2092439241
3829478999
3671322671
8065338580
5621611266
6079477446
3382021228
2895598898
4498172198
0324586949
8977775129
1058479199
1931313199
8399373839
9999996999
4858525148
9625289226
1028297882
0628821885
5728868334
5218305621
5853353538
4228824842
8755225725
9000600990
1618881813
0019002301
8998699886
6699792767
0996795670
9227892377
0829790707
3124092388
9329629787
1061825750
0354294246
1726296448
6997296946
8202854946
8999596958
1412881142
8545956946
4222194251
9689890486
5669028722
3994587724
9672527573
9059238578
3842338224
6682786712
5535335558
2227327273
5866168861
3837481032
9537401394
9857880346
4739549284
2837132782
3535885538
9167477477
4229892498
2730528700
4452535245
5915335129
7277477724
9491919394
7404879724
9103870649
8563215224
4189339644
4128833294
3313694394
4538692394
2246691505
5304070999
2639372396
3244934499
9035590835
0608198601
4979971994
3071737430
3921029290
1021202202
4506354030
1927105246
2951012199
4071286954
3501746143
3526350315
7133127632
7243150908
7210931415
2110145624
2680990802
6113713174
3145114515
6136113663
7210992922
2574664072
9406700777
4237377723
9830399383
9990362567
9501794141
2471715096
2596352263
2200124324
9025020055
2526725272
4389739396
1054999050
4506920387
2367004559
2059958716
4025741031
1007008151
The puzzle
Given the above hint, what famous landmark do the numbers below refer to?
6469649750
6494677207
7081830245
6509549208
3404532050
6461818848
0079697969
7897597979
7562527557
2994222496
7554115497
9199774967
1131350321
1793414467
7086575427
4900528997
1354610525
5232219497
3088065659
3305385326
0405368117
5466302495
0305350530
5106215210
7488338738
3529353930
7061576106
2200661078
2318345656
2210157136
8613162630
8290191978
8648968894
5803385088
2927474977
2210666021
3158913883
3918363705
0944908821
1958985483
0153350355
3938993939
0154909015
3908292203
1616313861
9851999881
3817373381
5306235606
0832998983
0816909819
7806323520
3652434033
9816273314
0816969937
8562131595
3522925581
5710330840
1562308292
4481914449
5112353523
1760601612
8564954684
3522122322
3189495199
2528669802
2578832354
4529769014
4129799119
3580000553
2778424978
8829888828
4549644466
9353780576
6382021484
7040429286
3234016934
3117111371
9333949934
8288826288
2651125516
4748881484
2062280622
3660013206
4272442546
5199114959
3432612522
7117580955
6468812556
1701180927
3029810652
8094279670
9432174464
0210904478
2793276658
5077777750
8581785478
4496496664
5659669453
8485454418
1189286089
0634381286
0180938240
3989940030
7183993193
7970272279
3134331333
0683262686
7429929417
8475873196
3673302630
8578385628
9331383391
8505333358
9379139794
7733333337
3438333383
8871881178
2186809922
4675406305
4186840189
7886563129
4386336361
5875887588
2879373293
7118511151
4685446458
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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