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:

5350005637
9999969474
4710071830
7470272048
1918171598
9202471848
7443269470
1260101444
5781402430
0400901518
3032038686
6635013918
0666309971
9863368841
9636343406
6137337136
0066966096
9972079269
9661336666
3835533553
0277676267
0337603733
1922622621
9615452694
8270118707
9910168323
1307118544
0225647511
0227600463
1320134778
6134489503
5020372551
1560403531
5204161473
7176073478
7474174451
6733009723
1303183301
5525882538
0808171078
3386131001
1463235806
0815001045
2271294001
2865613741
9441911941
0922992206
7552505785
1131313807
8685335068
5814078687
1339250937
5040826987
0234058620
8460456324
6066976970
6324623684
8557358317
0207375330
2272571725
9318530506
3030432400
4233037501
8056036200
0779231450
1511131251
4624647426
2826682216
3793332930
1031330501
2227426868
9100446512
2306313661
2194734468
8829811861
3915113891
4488814468
8683836868
2111221611
4222747642
4289170741
1678718201
4861718793
2084095453
4502810258
0107110748
7599925497
0060680603
1922515251
7289978298
9268337289
5115141951
5857517588
8098880309
6960390386
4933490509
5521919286
2810781259
8449537289
3120480381
7189118791
2494042444
6532126566
7474373377
9569555606
7584361755
1499142517
6179564652
9489168512
7574039411
1144464314
5443434453
5322775226
1111111141
6079997906
5255214314
7781217311
2239465921
7735794263
7737691911
0079178476
0035437484
0007252633
3035450544
9837389199
0233333032
3039433489
9683292299
4035130453
0877180881
5626229156
4471141196
7100990917
8383389463
0777770117
2991091116
9054040156
2250979116
3806480117
9297330153

The puzzle

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

5355513565
2855475842
8481810158
1777775107
7067578605
9276270658
2559015505
8321778147
3387675105
1041583145
2997744402
3675547425
4979124407
9877276425
8361096107
9177997117
6767476427
8747444427
8882525588
0406446405
3208206156
8448386373
0127718837
5943688187
3947036364
3663316335
4010502154
8686888867
3677020373
6342635246
1585384271
3267740596
9816190274
6221837594
9956655891
9437937994
0651885501
2446646276
5151857841
9094590454
6919191528
0652505266
3224223724
7327372036
2825558472
3310671228
8246923628
8063092772
8887201026
0518208728
3376754569
2447352470
1534250518
2678118410
4641258412
8111118410
0400434840
0450550439
6323132162
8727777518
6846646672
9929189217
3326288236
9189114899
3737737372
3705419672
7859238299
8838448277
5599359396
8216519312
0572120055
0639006909
5072005525
8222119828
6721917117
6229160829
0579097499
0471980775
6032930083
8071074995
1559182006
5680165959
5365192550
0861457223
9658165423
1685338163
9550409541
0368300063
5249662594
7850110751
9210305444
5900920832
1060508421
7960590371
0514925721
5004335300
0910409000
7050257003
9252552252
0564959600
5230933205
3219131339
7834774633
3382686363
8738778387
7238945294
7232755749
3330197190
7816795090
5739714160
2596241160
8676367785
9505955751
5691838487
2626943142
5846555456
8505228252
2696003606
9477994779
2621331366
3729712310
9918019809
5799034576
4797459004
3529782920
9797799719
3798477343
5093059950
4527042044
5929492594
5447363499
3081576207
5690914294
3690964118
3990948332
3997139911
0680000008
2241224622
5480580555
6090909960

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.

Post a comment