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:

1602323610
5341912459
0540555500
1210330013
9770199007
5240143292
5640365826
1740922088
1343550353
1212150896
9195050019
7066909672
3818253182
9996920909
6677737786
2700457076
4700350702
7574328109
1414157602
0989529186
1158367210
8955062258
3695932256
6045642008
2020832203
2572732257
2372747023
9322632916
8841444288
0667769607
6852182804
1859157148
1152885012
2853062089
6145565849
2150114101
3562005663
6895119986
6819518511
1743441344
3482211329
6134751069
5185386489
6747474066
2783899396
3703374390
1944914494
1579971669
8960996083
2299259226
2407972604
0945114901
9563263326
2739929377
1271313317
9533102250
0545954169
1723277324
0267143614
2265123197
1254257112
6218486642
1572991597
0887387703
6842994229
6844305234
0557510798
6872923965
6274299775
0877952217
5292322225
8422007901
5292319116
8297000812
8299507766
8694599494
9279479227
5157353595
1872077281
1492009002
2003478049
0798749809
0270347349
0516751826
6284678309
0599359039
4048747802
9088882300
3222676323
6686468946
5149254275
3981913331
4675466465
4333888334
0838993388
0333968569
4831277270
5830955821
0631869165
4188418358
4313434631
7899889782
5909579955
4220404452
0777772007
8332439785
6745874455
8237374985
2615202065
9711974655
8521621861
9060500991
2472122274
7580375055
0538538380
0081305788
2540537437
8538620149
0520141836
8568596879
1426626401
6416666164
6195112964
2200080420
1811778718
0264210921
5214968964
8122486914
5093788428
3923581420
7266370076
1728324747
1169474443
1628140219
9729341120
7268172128
9922444920
9106110990
1779333991
7930000937

The puzzle

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

7744777446
1667070616
7542020524
4344339453
2499994287
0457070246
0384428513
6761970247
2005294246
2016477684
1384826282
1084655946
5115070383
1911330327
4054962699
9155999999
4982022421
5064303550
1881818818
7511611611
9980502234
0907004911
9370544995
9880782295
9507544605
6930556929
9587658797
9913699933
0377535077
0800000000
4840584482
3379877397
9612361392
3684886868
1976797171
9979765979
3684397925
9870501034
1971751565
3674774425
1984887888
0583080538
5483533855
9487393849
3239739272
5289726457
0989543658
8483858523
9984706964
0483759246
0145051503
6953971460
6594951440
5366651050
5040679712
1127553017
5400151400
5274171542
7575159157
7572752760
6877747680
9659808099
5481397110
8573676270
9492896646
6446996684
4840048099
4070479240
4671595176
0777707776
6074150270
3081512996
9055080322
1584085627
3755108653
6405555055
3051515353
2754148747
1582025551
9089595950
4625885161
8138831037
4628185397
8421868403
8621145180
7225357335
5021666000
8158885882
2786188618
4638836883
0335582701
0405525181
0896981245
7830571365
2835589565
6505555656
8852588555
2436003060
0490200209
7133939315
3978392506
8227962930
5264353524
5974964351
5467703860
8176996681
8967787777
5474344454
3214444344
8218382839
9685809689
7784448847
5255212235
6646660468
4254555524
9667618567
7468108065
2701252289
8683362225
1888668638
8011909812
0866262622
0799507795
7809668787
0903393990
8809301361
0861693295
8711907533
8819279922
0001188770
0141184203
5615768715
9679301242
3979170021
5051180374
5945394933
0098404044
3671116311
9759192991
8618788166

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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