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:

0662464073
9393939588
8888878877
0410323410
5672572756
4217678878
6196232888
7130772117
0591229086
9436674518
4849228498
1290510915
6213661226
3401713478
6503130361
3401743136
3243122880
6553694044
4243255322
1590656152
0702963618
1746938609
0789726243
9630056855
9782927657
9309793097
0340000300
9236797733
1786266822
6712997026
4718317747
6682322269
6568006506
1975889779
2155752222
2758364733
6715716156
1288848575
4655724241
6188025757
1824336791
3646381465
4982348985
3844489126
4943361293
4222332433
7263336767
3986487833
8844242242
1842424242
4044044704
3200002507
5516461754
4744994479
9672792607
8019894707
7638394654
3050034707
3494704754
0664102774
5173756150
4629234110
2098136160
0388716085
5224616875
4444534845
5666556015
5630302163
3030330170
2117217852
4455383045
5935229253
4461886034
4606060416
2626596265
7690093053
5342090214
3210786010
6407693435
6360466036
0451004144
9104313993
8389338334
8177588177
7137137137
8139560328
9487052201
0179128760
0457066657
9781372540
7398439787
3033330300
2767067221
6717227611
4435354354
6438303019
4757011262
6317045252
4738422347
7763331883
1136583435
1192724453
3217202401
9776094205
2871299836
0214194401
3353282835
2816929186
6333996273
3111003101
1747385191
4181785397
9465319891
2717187790
2426879317
9607976690
7477717377
9152515192
9711789117
2155225841
4131501428
9163585307
4447382139
4731379333
2361382437
1137333171
9337593339
2741312212
4161514061
0489448849
4459000948
0933708973
0022225072
6726177126
1711116741
0876617976
8491124076
0250907078
4398878048
6288928748

The puzzle

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

1686016008
0906930594
3333833183
0001099401
8922552980
0138616093
3790534184
1643830400
9995333483
2303439988
9143326332
6304139989
6524188704
9944112284
9504181322
3304333333
6509868099
9144141099
7228552782
9243122934
1429777117
4735245417
2736663663
9378379837
0596195061
4496148619
0525614612
0875389790
4795377699
9329395852
0868868180
9020013029
0005008850
0120931990
3311134431
2140014939
7205034420
9830233890
4307918850
3850269090
0500000055
7722667240
7748770974
5525452240
8885195718
3746690018
2957575040
2925275275
0408990340
2195305210
8488881424
1183131109
0780180701
4644442467
5355759738
1763839101
2353380709
6863081438
5828131437
1042282174
3509110957
4094708643
0589554432
4583150013
3693106079
6483338826
3699763797
3079473770
0544154050
4683555343
0914288931
5485397411
7947117832
1140711838
0605833972
5882557528
3713333871
7444111432
4482858234
3993393913
4058850410
5809355533
0259696695
4514155141
2597119217
4894167987
2899602282
4609134730
5507190997
5509845630
0618417193
1923484583
8228089234
8972499876
1983763575
8172999922
0983130089
3271023077
1918789219
2723443342
1943031818
2974381491
2878334626
1794330900
1848307482
0993339393
1654006494
1894399339
2178277718
4846846488
8485006688
6535293152
7594639296
6595661123
7373784789
7575775757
7534232425
6431646616
2322523228
8293028933
1810220121
2309622223
7019071010
9369199699
2725112116
7325183153
9320201820
1710147264
9760274745
2315355990
4832816609
3412216743
9450140992
9480155478
3810527423
9537579769
0881118181
4600949460
3712832281
1451111151

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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