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:

9569665591
8322428734
6767777266
7299219922
8088770188
5244270968
7765878198
0832929990
0248275732
3421419281
0333838333
7177515277
6664863486
2333992533
5964575964
5979618436
2085878436
6913612936
4980935066
3100465576
6973789471
5602981242
6479125284
3976858871
3409769602
3629933279
7905777077
7173077117
6426826266
5942899599
7772272809
6368586158
9101009910
1177525771
2772777927
9176872851
1918306917
4580076718
2127187877
3561202991
6677167617
1144448112
5586886565
3883232380
8313330883
8267032685
8950132562
4973160163
3517786280
5773237312
3758030300
4543734544
1980383003
1272111113
7948994794
1948724952
1252366999
4942331544
1780119640
5772942313
3010441582
3081732739
3178345035
3160315934
3180309625
2085555255
9061464640
7571315115
5171755057
3110703311
7754959706
0856424375
1419104129
7659407387
6816147739
4418114114
0839933990
1654441145
7986499686
6816616176
0169004322
1566001545
8313226039
1829009106
1168303598
8523353333
0336236230
4178001888
1768272768
0869505250
4328023172
0944053382
0448050152
3882026189
3859490182
5525550552
8898778789
8129295182
3335373302
0090722970
8759370399
6738857768
9168353617
1159685845
6733508038
2153513513
1159711559
6768338666
6134834651
8199699168
2323809760
9995129368
5571039549
8864120440
9677859327
3303330300
9222429429
0043103140
9018339087
7666752768
9979919497
3375353373
3336666383
8889668895
5075110552
6617818355
3858558897
6433110394
5338668393
9308016573
8226672682
9665995684
7279692627
6746222644
7774554704
5912875784
2310672624
2319972684
7246775744
9961522404

The puzzle

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

1647611125
3124701245
7918495649
7003931367
6081091142
5355995250
2144228143
6613511365
2211101342
5633635629
7826383277
4046564450
7307227230
5481588345
6931191619
6087529956
6481509561
7081150732
7221360206
4826256523
4677177211
6493972909
9689377709
2530501623
9589453751
2417772214
8676506859
7830357803
1001071703
1464143621
3322929933
2439414298
1411241214
3880884083
9079119750
8455211213
4802721910
5899714093
1338014214
4059320783
9910559810
2924444925
9229239229
0701001210
7365576355
2132859210
6898741219
4804005225
3593049310
1390044225
8329898889
8125111221
8882000818
6135831633
5632553266
6135565063
5339543167
8835841264
5855531940
5135580590
2639736397
6546548546
9329323932
1188182941
0602992460
4382293561
5994185332
0242023536
5785892532
6544622491
3939674440
1921675899
5733499837
5571623765
1828582775
1931991390
7573252373
1739499793
5858658855
5928585558
5758138144
9835375794
9304363009
5758359825
9773122315
9405353443
5934949993
7473143437
2838323823
9758471554
3965361386
6265983782
6741356879
3237986815
6271368760
3067330636
6233236323
1205333133
6745968797
3471833838
2517452177
4072107104
2946726649
1732613163
1421551118
2532563593
2977122279
1076599890
4742570351
2731922520
4381623265
9508618860
1978631868
2238139618
7026839883
8113331828
5683865863
2924323290
8553538855
8909019680
6679026186
4266174826
2401814988
9039312827
2807896746
1884914948
8244104187
6266296826
6725626756
0708870878
8937990149
8783996774
8783281523
1993936659
6786340354
6373373333
8983939999
4156216505
1787987977
8996999899

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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