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:

7003003720
0711071940
2466050046
5775272759
5101551120
6017871746
7715151940
0775557146
5934001740
8029852926
9839773998
7120722177
2357835852
9326332335
9792979929
7122905722
9725360304
7790828708
7397838757
9726749653
2761516755
2005835045
5068368319
9870136516
9109416615
1660116606
4968438649
5161535016
1676336716
6455666355
8248028608
7125621655
6906999906
6978557869
5029955509
6906969942
8206954849
6026143581
5026549397
6929673949
5344143561
3033020370
5522542500
1205007012
8365356853
2558250850
9201826511
0561258853
8915127850
3550042060
1988898821
0122212210
4045485544
5555555745
4989339488
2617818440
9376085711
7736158720
1306292010
6823398444
0888898608
5855451466
2122182521
9659855986
5277332675
7011858621
0356891966
5877192626
0054150405
6387532928
5991375723
2186333413
3438381433
1302673831
6019873818
7738773738
4144181413
4465405425
4484470848
3366131336
4615715117
0597257090
6483938968
3875575355
5122512822
6527546343
5582997748
5515920068
0085786061
0825926074
1801317386
9865617347
9910308202
2332187532
9110163935
9171197999
9364163962
0985699598
2810310003
1002880208
7472969232
7152960358
4146948938
5672361933
7676908662
4441332444
1152115121
8477947748
7637999737
7176377637
8857394914
3052454940
9863934917
2469354734
6067035601
5646555644
3949945934
0512015910
1116761701
5415134517
4080408604
4222222447
8603606378
8016868506
6336333643
9010438446
8967106474
6636202146
3004163504
9902228574
2926523259
1843774057
8445973474
3822214074
0817475054
7472772576
8847815784
2222217227
3777373494
9440444059

The puzzle

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

8668538711
9890244225
5743331506
7122538563
6762258561
3343334963
6856858816
4745441672
1222121725
5551535501
9979130197
2123141832
0080012208
7858380387
1446131466
9963211392
9966911387
3794431137
8162742802
9229772466
9921511488
9213547673
4129847656
8687437658
9814812558
5885533558
6677717476
6553543355
3334332473
6477647682
5750349872
6923729805
3104008547
7587849548
1027471897
7787778777
4504841085
5785828547
4870979805
9808509598
2946885089
4892909319
7856193528
6487945392
2991948832
9897577977
6282928223
7942117941
2476862284
4881998848
1633140542
6668794987
1293117978
9269964447
6267987398
6666116666
1032733121
6263110111
9639191391
6197976916
2728045327
0577459387
0194147827
8571435143
1164432427
3533335356
8754715847
2777352783
2574447421
2214242127
9015914976
0761721977
6325830876
2279621953
0138433877
3237333837
3621291623
7270720757
4396643976
3788884873
4043342150
1648122607
7767034193
7418444280
8088234693
1351133105
0802822087
6360424663
9992342293
5455662540
2786674268
0466604665
3273497473
4316644613
3511131544
2787874643
5520974614
9104237524
3218537265
9355494514
1264929871
8009290725
7959910479
9558620661
8158890698
1911511569
1811898831
2552020695
8171719718
0374010470
0555550571
4577747752
7957797350
6333323933
3381313338
6567417771
0845750371
5368123330
7016293531
8362428352
4911777194
8828885297
2400121690
2474247275
0566556260
5196275290
4024006297
1570625690
7974645297
0181747260
2440941472
5898475182
6468710687
5480993634
6940726536
2703937720
0792797209
9420424906
6968169691
5840904940

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