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:

2485789774
3395184097
2497618948
9004725685
3402102870
9084590284
3510733011
2405646026
3202222232
2497172927
1540151004
4601777600
9530110319
0307808827
7968979896
9930123562
0930168706
0560757194
9648983431
0557175649
6616731329
9615591816
1475737197
1095871914
1874341262
7594354643
7473646336
6870767677
1016810080
1615516651
0486985067
0089998860
1911918512
0183090465
1083983187
1089913101
1586262281
0913090099
4011814811
0183000830
2458408193
4539578793
2049018254
8173705189
6249411709
4144115453
2031773219
8440108143
0000001703
9084408794
4820920498
3702520587
1611010610
7195571579
7377773497
4291010677
3427426599
2420813677
4260320697
0070473487
6077636706
7288287227
7598995798
0224004322
8074772704
8458694708
7237936798
7794904394
8417097702
0526776329
9963169199
5769696679
0996199995
8594644448
7665116111
5969108963
5964187351
2666191920
0699113050
9664663041
2126138612
0681661802
9911191211
9909094200
9572975965
9416231815
8480661905
1371975802
5714875611
6690161235
0011010204
3876376398
5181986391
5566576695
7554757014
7061616294
2674176295
9738386208
1690477615
2381057044
5418892329
7161398514
5656939667
2411309783
5418529520
7411517144
2468383346
5356955955
1616868606
2691212691
2971712973
9922229992
3999949399
7478782771
5154353134
1314213999
7043023994
1714188193
5086649972
0897012173
8555785555
4328984864
5965005050
7855445755
7467774477
4965921486
8955006815
5528453337
5765011931
7555429079
6020126101
0706373000
5055655505
4474144444
2653773797
4476328462
2024741567
0724826995
4753789927
6654735390

The puzzle

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

5622202526
2500020570
0343331103
1111166111
4138178413
4783276500
9415736513
3959476113
4262066571
4605570720
2368236208
2807070026
4313144313
4484081840
5552995722
0579494320
1277635317
1842736212
6831370043
5532791728
9967195651
9898169033
3448998487
3498351897
9426949220
5946116515
5928775959
3067268233
9448394899
5493995349
2702867022
5500877775
2842985566
5708161870
2800388343
7958959898
5120852255
1800908810
2742337278
1822112111
8648188688
3855783735
3695161913
6226446232
1187771117
6125163210
6121127981
1855113200
1847457744
3156168722
6069936497
4165241148
0017932409
0317438674
4429949265
6039930643
4367277273
5187487717
0422402444
8017999990
6343942946
5750959775
5113353353
5399799953
7196571551
7310524456
5113572258
5773515193
5193349370
5153304688
7888139550
8698040132
6192086355
7187119915
0897149612
6199198166
1922001192
7677000677
0695266209
4888188888
4702190325
7064759831
0036309887
5168158225
7165763797
7098379380
4162541522
5002770762
0736167776
4205100440
8516808764
7234713780
5531410526
0212893768
9775470584
4084990184
9239597528
8838338590
0016110869
3688673786
8939989193
4077002727
5952585952
8141164481
6166776122
6339474952
0597004781
6288709121
9340174953
0398009420
5487703696
8966053673
7803076016
0346967057
4377877158
5655555075
8883843638
1791070197
6695669353
0755607516
0600653670
2807672068
7999659969
7007007147
4240990642
1858477042
8783677968
0244157348
9804777647
4467002170
0566264703
8090801994
3765824479
8569803901
4096988739
0863939396
8516868085
8549696489
3750270552
4096296429

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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