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:

7711337737
0753350335
5487555554
7327373703
0912711002
0311782682
0977316209
0317502055
5713538633
0722350609
7471391888
2638912748
2275706111
2278334794
2338747259
7455375534
0245959275
2371333732
2838732388
0334734047
7186078311
0862118673
7162152791
7835150508
0261181610
7285998785
7538173773
1082000818
0101103101
5869282829
4065545054
9515005091
6342926899
2720070002
8774997797
6775982687
6764942120
8380034502
9365946453
4040966448
6721918116
8451775457
7964090467
4345995555
4533334334
8441741815
6454993550
6725991612
1464941070
4455961306
7678526586
6061518406
3162615112
3545818442
0935216342
5015515502
0061831806
2488484314
4466626448
8868818682
5995595775
6936993265
1650006635
6164561495
2001110002
2784611065
0102210902
6015700065
5534863665
6729860265
1210205621
4346433416
3777703767
7499474917
3325333539
9011233626
5304533267
5925203419
0414703619
9286533436
0583927865
4137577725
1247495665
5054857820
8089895830
7789777890
3035020835
2822727620
8559795870
2557225765
5980787624
5640112422
1304207155
1644547764
1680126477
1224111191
7640575440
1908208092
5689886598
5305903905
5217175122
5776377757
6353053346
3035223550
3641131614
3271369648
3739167114
3745137388
5756308987
3276172717
0114081903
9958958990
4488974819
8488848838
3188318943
5095278848
3512071830
3006458813
3925018813
7937258149
4883720308
3455561702
8140621126
9764229128
8170013786
5522115125
0840121480
6607116702
0020023306
7871769378
0637979990
1596269669
7136411163
0039031393
3881531131
0536503951
7139082338
0897048227
6896489826
3036249212

The puzzle

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

3221633507
0396948465
0695624546
0435304207
0335920893
6636996666
0339939993
2421334324
0935739019
3793667997
9999990939
7227727777
5064505004
5888150981
8080990083
6331490087
9338390083
1688990937
5996790039
0922655769
7699013819
0818612356
3055816229
4873613539
1215632321
5362112539
4755357430
6221616216
5545334755
1123223321
2007027001
5967776257
2281821788
3437794739
6166516541
2029497581
5932894549
6883096207
1033076241
6538526245
0828634947
4018335273
1618338818
4211387676
4691721212
0012510151
4821616211
6698334366
4224722227
7216442641
2157561208
2913060418
6076370098
1116574528
8937125523
8016313600
6937176769
3052030233
1372512032
2167021702
4502930639
5605940653
4720149235
4739213259
4544617156
9118110619
7332307236
5559449055
6465435164
4632243256
9336911102
4339548344
8129569107
2570307091
9176381850
8330933693
3706993797
9573539795
0149334331
4926229662
1431031392
3373001291
8825236233
0560342793
3730856319
9292938992
3925032098
9522155291
3377141733
3336956319
4504534507
8942883923
6602629608
0321990132
1971993711
0078690618
2616533725
4810484708
1227793523
6525730707
9323223596
5178180824
7380179911
4353127990
4150589326
9350150910
5134543515
4028227442
4343223333
7583237227
3588263561
2340534762
9056248563
4368767062
9396298562
7777737762
3676763763
4154144112
7077037068
9955598545
1270753740
6076908335
0604917056
0009157300
2344924629
0300990003
1634224114
2274924222
4546164114
6019411403
6984051220
9337556207
1106051291
9235451047
7771451027
2123153421
2277156217
5945431945
1521151102
9068726097

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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