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:

8672226822
0190000000
0811910090
7813777327
7960799996
8862967607
7170268112
8990531809
8810711587
7911014145
9515342547
3099603661
9535628313
0078337474
9813342647
0083333088
7534177873
9565659999
3519696336
1898999998
7841877818
0128999290
7501457770
7885982889
7036770336
0841768077
7085709168
7848934047
0135889883
7887898319
8450280184
1896333989
3397333337
6390069933
6530336063
1490347439
8590312049
1546316521
6390274338
1537384070
9790928970
4606776610
3386676831
7322387732
8376377836
8011677732
0397486876
8836977832
1157128826
9851577910
5346916612
3590839410
3890529192
6235726280
2814079204
0002112400
7272676212
1194449194
4422424224
3669229682
9720992299
6542956652
5424525444
8100908109
8793938949
9503521418
5522927840
5743973294
9700455509
9142938999
9770155462
7355084011
7390416627
7425270421
9452161613
7779117779
9105799915
9390490090
0495257424
5752055527
4111242112
5722022072
4082580580
3737937372
5447377445
4482386242
5132571202
5217344830
3741544789
3147351560
4164052055
3925999705
4436858158
9893100909
0752252365
5839558965
0883850308
9991049109
2887858728
0905002059
8860559879
4725854490
5172034140
6901849849
4327454490
1916119690
8798449875
9954959749
2743834928
0330437470
3666260263
8072708723
2471874148
3699933699
5385358039
4931633223
2849803268
4353230129
7334051198
3336134093
6929800045
3929369137
7929353428
3209767580
3965760651
0208339322
3825732577
6069896686
3904844904
4939394334
3806631676
2805268871
3874687585
2815020970
5804383699
3574377337
2406062466
9865268656
5301331915
5574677777

The puzzle

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

3733312466
0219311480
3781072860
0739612466
3933216566
5995992501
5437474436
1868252816
6144116444
1717111760
1673770117
5164603999
9810870619
2503100497
4526293667
5695996590
2591050921
6032303269
5100100117
6777777669
5254044479
9114718459
1887286419
9779786315
5965494569
0053518550
3838883339
6999994469
6444414416
9994946879
1291913605
2349905343
2892511085
0201862049
0802961834
7592577579
0341995191
4890688890
2201812018
1701401171
9699594569
0470220046
5665066405
5555665565
9323933279
1312296509
7889485046
3489725566
3187290579
1096160509
7673367362
7083032057
4771134171
7050047570
6622378326
2637878560
4845577376
8290138072
8339138176
0247048676
5307265398
7955112207
7147193859
4137353233
5909587067
0935990953
8319313191
7137221121
4806505500
5959195149
7850778075
7222278292
3129762397
3545534358
6467778684
9038278297
1836472095
4867972372
5029178693
6273678677
1559559004
4428882624
0883737280
2299229495
8851151585
7886057204
3275850404
0675521405
2132987000
0391359085
2666906211
6267795047
2166251873
6267537467
7160902341
3266536362
6137776153
2160222612
6290000900
7866967986
4565565563
5045540540
8476887674
4148128441
8661191869
4122898541
7705140564
8796787574
8487121469
0978445431
0100121069
1929312392
3583253272
2292909299
1011558101
4570811399
6632352271
2372559009
7381858359
7220911172
1173677326
2239077693
6299074656
0080247406
0284016625
3776773671
5662626695
4441214423
4699994956
1632247321
0100214881
6833803025
0529923581
2354484387
0480497581
1610116021
2888383289
8828002885
2579027502
8418194381

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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