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:

4488848348
2215261120
3318001838
5005505506
5588331758
7962631548
7155808758
0579301758
8760345890
7167145748
4298889689
5564183680
5160280110
6148730629
0508293673
3317333174
0999997629
8195185190
3842424683
7057080517
5002899655
8007314282
8809109552
8159160285
7669411956
2962994622
8798219928
6165165155
2221201282
6969660956
0036936009
2352223228
6193661919
8904744800
5536355365
6036321840
2096941757
9196956185
6006263999
5594387784
9407579045
0205727770
7290070997
7531005577
7496779096
9590562809
7200777853
7436045259
7205854147
7536002456
9205895082
3261313669
1445544455
8261262122
1866711617
1845785943
1261806137
3265544423
9461235984
1247506533
3828560879
3071830508
0793030865
3890197297
9023903066
0793177177
3791002073
3870883087
3923732392
9078907009
1668068000
9435444455
1635215265
1386516313
2018118242
1435526836
1636459441
9038220773
1315243334
1965162805
1173511111
2034634830
7586766668
9620499299
9570555059
9623764368
4126542094
9133517154
1080463860
2676544797
7999699999
0864844466
1930406439
7721811121
4337573555
1924524636
7969880567
1824818164
1769559769
6790872213
8664689618
2205339987
8514771291
8228816865
5525360796
5111355513
2604866684
8225222524
8828388888
1566616566
3457997210
0230057178
3212181554
3217126285
8438923399
3992933909
0738111007
3217883327
8236826686
0450244002
1008000612
4800284290
4900440092
4747876248
6663776973
7168270212
6602780990
7663566010
4404374972
6636980690
0593333939
7717667617
0313000310
8780585077
0169191021
0319323514
0390046195
8760593867
0310929690
0587329717

The puzzle

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

8419671509
6880570133
9280390811
3380124518
8449343924
9380393909
8289122282
6989195819
3819666386
6440064646
4653801997
1674012816
0664236691
4174293009
3067942734
3654932363
0174001007
4067444444
7081221118
0263883038
8686585467
5504004508
2975702379
0620250642
7252535772
1117434409
5129335302
8534785777
0791505377
4279435552
0685459104
1284659494
7959752529
3269958195
6392238204
3018138103
5575952499
4111669194
5544454505
4944259244
4897499474
5356455104
5003899574
4826175194
9875851479
3615135114
3591091503
7797797674
5559555099
9777739477
4545981915
8056281953
8388781518
0673942958
0107492558
4829991948
9946446593
3838138918
0105681056
2535282453
9976477278
5761640852
5934515850
7679517923
7134580393
5975595595
7136433173
5664664646
9779499977
5954355515
8084177149
3484015960
3407411170
0035516010
1330691249
7777775279
1599191168
7971718947
6989187619
1701171010
7206870782
9478179184
2057075305
7803222273
6048998969
7278966696
8008000306
7448968878
6203134313
7056159739
0803323080
7222227222
8877876598
4727686746
2535558263
1003076726
5320783242
9658556546
2672128048
2716273883
3288452011
0785970912
4285344769
5208216667
4207328743
3290933323
9105494000
4707224222
7588382837
5406600046
5716343573
3354440995
9777083815
9480533525
7561433555
6101132611
8353383895
7885583575
3343340173
4914541958
6327315840
8926863416
3827928023
0327984631
0941989765
5927379933
8362888832
3931991199
0715850012
0846886866
5536355555
8928722798
3354033044
5145144550
0217555221
5535503886
5815010184
8314030428
5546323237
0136561886

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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