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:

6153566653
2043122014
7950550777
5706253767
6287776728
6107142435
6287745847
5907146358
2103122272
7123560273
6189836992
8306554902
0482774507
5342135597
7591032697
0660334906
4342734742
5105955905
9233232597
3616006631
3286535347
8895845921
0791541320
7618138920
9443035425
4794934947
0855205120
6677461427
3044344380
8808938095
3438084919
4532508818
4128893508
1758295899
8119074509
9989994899
9777773529
8267002578
3838883918
0900808809
7623360327
4446664534
6814001648
7589718798
2332797293
2376817398
9263018534
2754500697
2918391337
8160868330
4484512035
4480729639
6282754721
6582375151
2402784625
4486333824
8280502800
2800727022
6422626246
0582050085
5920825708
6626636682
0000700700
2278882724
7900971509
4492675700
5028191508
7300225608
2649880704
7916631708
5289486060
8642789450
1210013499
0459910465
0404410396
3098339089
6681686266
5143514365
4940440493
9039039050
6533333563
2219112222
0753757700
5569795609
5673776366
5573724544
0533745709
5679766228
5239318538
5768702602
2000803480
5644794576
4383043068
3113155431
6116132156
4767833036
8083455178
2922193565
9753443488
2041154568
1657838741
2237956205
1207192338
0620107651
3257143695
8600998990
9257122270
1378777783
3237838378
2021222222
8038494586
3315722236
8036967439
1156796215
1015780910
3136730617
2358855855
8034708338
6035850566
1716416166
2882751221
5729371455
3478376428
0733954445
7522011328
7821771825
3314994314
7181151058
4587489457
1112113241
2752525047
8841141228
8000660850
3209293622
4636333640
8132093028
9062923647
1956433642
8595791520
7574693628

The puzzle

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

8226668922
5916591956
1646446195
2412223545
2533533250
2130493992
3203533255
8501573950
4869938550
5622228140
8091255908
1439354968
8704954268
2701055403
5437655968
8858555968
5884454845
4388535288
6000050406
6683335868
4444434464
0454995074
5911941195
5909992000
7778174861
6889634804
9245872496
6864194860
5708094161
8636732074
1161101367
5100005551
8172762137
5355556536
7503577530
7198872557
4053207537
9808551536
5473506596
5268177536
4714919411
0953553300
8581185185
4782228787
1504756750
0501906411
1704595681
8752158436
4204748067
8582597728
9104029487
1340526751
9260332566
9397366707
8771382128
5344355335
9141344711
1777017077
8266556282
1090009100
5936749067
1473062467
9162569649
3305036045
6820433647
4554332547
4401014009
6464000645
7947749378
3460663466
3783490546
6061996753
8230933593
2599618644
7546296599
7173716706
1440010654
3338396348
2311313253
9599548599
9029298006
3300480995
9172690190
9877380111
1078498301
1891998111
2112191192
8988448006
0029220290
5398282395
2136001660
3250656225
8876387686
1958195489
8859151981
8858146084
1130125941
8878006579
1478098148
3878081217
7924782304
3245727934
1703067906
9423741403
9455583293
9023793707
1975000030
7444544774
3956773967
9205555055
6247494075
5687263472
1596991471
7280392023
1396294478
9979992079
3119391933
7217363721
5969594375
6841464418
1565392015
7861077650
1873057023
1863779661
1565928943
7565976797
1661766111
7893083799
1845385341
1963319513
4573653737
3970870380
4507400001
4735553443
4110510010
4703501495
4933802380
4901859624
4513508647
3573826287

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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