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:

2289119202
8336773783
5703440443
1560101110
2549595225
8589142037
2563170986
5239228009
2703444844
2740128100
4219926370
1614991385
4079313473
1019926154
6017905836
6619515596
4217442477
7055905055
1777777771
7944574645
0648510336
8471334835
3715733737
1309766335
1070850832
3405110145
6838346837
6777267732
6326631126
2225253322
8654683853
8946869281
8948971212
2615914513
4214385164
4616331616
2669969199
9244664444
8578888887
1954334935
2612788122
0808598604
9386867662
1449213064
7356610122
9292590625
0010460184
9099797160
8211218072
3018886201
2989158124
2231455295
5814655732
0021221794
4318850084
8747758784
1124221124
0035355034
0289052092
0502540025
6565659655
1221212815
2834228243
5843523534
7999779276
6646078635
7021058812
9462718853
0315658215
4879613234
3431672387
3016562387
6840822385
5669438375
7920034875
7327772374
3778734877
5727782577
3533979395
8842168184
4411134716
0299992569
3135358431
6833603868
1121552212
5074292762
9873853836
1282558438
0109472761
8141838219
0406202646
3416331711
9696096096
0421944120
9156156561
3416147407
9456344757
8411146228
0401967039
0401902568
7212757635
2030059836
9562029854
2916254831
4018854026
5525557522
5695856836
2492554921
6377772631
9222929054
0732307432
1018011380
7777997407
9896769794
1333337124
1574237337
8781069734
4300639134
3795009307
2761579107
8453008636
8043084690
1870732036
1420340140
5589743975
8840338434
5559335585
0043700440
1380010380
5423995932
2186321882
4411744714
0311310131
1019190001
6044335466
6189706225
2119314424
1016720072
5019379790
0416392379

The puzzle

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

6442334266
5755050756
0646742647
2222202212
4035552403
9265632616
9991202647
0424080202
6306732606
8055134242
0559383950
2580518810
7520884086
5510883913
5976478986
9689918986
6887678916
9054774051
3633313963
0080884400
3000500153
4757720274
6556995767
7945479524
5595592595
7132090524
0676400577
2212725163
5517300724
9391510164
2396744746
5378733842
7460045777
8570134235
8923893706
8334334842
7177741737
4597795741
7137643776
5050565605
5609070312
4099841383
8274844572
6203541434
0846431315
3353331535
2244424412
6633364364
5423141382
1117770513
3499938685
7909737483
8264906408
9740838043
1741878601
3747737644
1003131103
6461106441
8353838485
3601376003
0221188535
2292386963
3712529371
3295525792
5822384215
2241114441
6812116286
3725535733
5294349932
5675565554
6076106176
0512525510
5115999555
4444244424
4486338389
4082549737
4412355468
4483106700
6172366627
0486147818
6437674726
8242050482
8498898408
3533343550
3358357338
9684658336
4986257530
6036093428
2774343588
9733298460
2007700227
2028322230
0379447970
0200200202
6893113979
0873348748
0379296974
2073290832
2229479018
2228929312
0404805488
4455444459
0008886407
7611669176
1685576516
2105675158
7708978479
8541376556
9845444476
3798206186
4748083853
4955792892
6606597062
6712487913
3837833396
6993393964
5663685376
0992989093
7777797792
8812232816
5325878396
7610256862
0423172422
8874778426
5565252121
3822173821
3983689362
1173252147
6448888496
2264142621
6433793987
2744097985
3040597635
6497097958
4130097984
1390191033
9669793657
7797292987
5555495174
7179567995

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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