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:

0863655554
9220274554
5105051884
8597251552
2202630582
1783334871
4119161914
5555555552
7359157183
5115560551
9858405205
1752287196
3211877484
5212268602
8751940760
5652996225
0781880787
8808202402
9159455515
1211311111
6856986011
5155717919
0031357889
8908186956
0050216819
6663936859
8216116812
9516316936
5187857819
1838380381
2292002871
2882281852
8348747338
8338363848
7000338073
5621031378
7138507878
5457964872
3520468058
1076161348
2083880323
2446462444
2020202122
6426649665
6466558645
8620059645
9111053625
7487248145
7257482464
8241509422
7456756764
6322932956
9989886899
7232324223
1225192515
6055892513
8074654569
9433592519
7648152915
3569324221
3589611824
0004894853
9332712324
2159231500
7421091390
3034314303
5424552514
9299032990
8422821824
8799097310
1001579258
6027732060
6037527604
6037728128
4937566297
4034533704
1936793337
6177311776
6607366666
9961669169
5777996847
0295956029
0375773051
0005550005
7671716752
5963253052
9441656052
1918376807
0486356095
4268650021
5007795790
6666156961
6755337526
7164757961
0999555910
9994857561
1037857961
0262158991
1035057510
1171135960
9418798826
8752698440
9188352513
3232156746
2849253440
3660993506
5387558723
8804458444
8486686346
1402042110
0576578262
6575455067
6634748996
6875078232
1234814266
3443554432
0000210290
8482278472
4586445667
6616916966
1777828042
0646692096
4012828233
0872516839
7711706912
0782772889
1677667776
7616517616
4842744242
4471884147
0572878365
6558871709
3845983036
3575118963
6545987758
6573995177
6895464599
8558885885
0540555050
3722933232

The puzzle

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

9677272280
9873252004
3655298154
9137296760
3170166914
4838138134
3851231181
3075606073
9607266720
1170220147
5252952458
5605714117
7243234489
2246385510
8379232719
8181334181
5522252599
5947494757
2455552450
8018515118
3089640154
0717089108
9056197512
9909799911
1042290508
5998199518
1110449112
8859787905
5095590551
9986980969
7753737058
8888638868
3327792073
0380301239
2112116221
7736296871
8740536278
7735402269
1450632123
3281391229
2789068059
4733713059
5222016027
9697838028
7004033022
4124118042
8899116928
0909333099
7695506057
3034834028
9249640986
9696626969
1101102811
6666619606
5323515532
8966219969
9694702566
5999949519
2368129609
9410729136
8130099458
4073293461
5418899273
6702295363
8845695453
1151591501
3636303363
8387865378
3969699456
7776595763
8988894810
5948656498
1797551975
2233442932
3864134631
6823296415
8622641930
1005904991
8401194818
8112956432
1516772080
9973332290
7544335038
8513612930
1361872691
8183552138
1581515984
3822232628
4003074490
3100030051
6161661106
2251115526
0702808027
0122822810
9455774554
4803615026
1393115551
2334212014
1662478514
0714618557
3776396043
9049500526
1779700449
9457957982
1183520069
7179979999
2053353252
1746576274
9489588589
1767777767
7699889879
3854235353
9025350280
5610505505
6725575256
7725529713
6029279634
5629328213
6629834275
5459501186
0907966145
3844049672
7995339337
0026495117
2056899312
1101996319
2322347932
5446535647
9999599475
1122246112
8821824180
5845282543
6565776552
6674376439
1559959984
5734052180
6425874589
4999089934
4663272537
1358822589

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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