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:

5606505695
6666763176
1534412934
0730371330
3933990263
1608690264
4401202333
5943101996
4918292135
5035805733
7687190143
7517990924
9415935347
8805809457
9621984613
9687999687
8706868088
7885685865
4423933344
7811111119
0437902421
9275598103
8867122846
8865598648
0467547579
6895995589
8265552828
9837132818
0461564405
8417747448
4917277172
3856536665
4064204604
2527827282
2777557770
4916589119
4557241189
2597260475
2067578745
2756261060
8400323881
6296754998
5271534712
8517765031
8470362579
5880775588
6298128649
3417033113
8505585550
8576387366
1989691836
8486585945
7101014170
5920959092
7911571598
8555219195
9313889543
0936581138
6021481832
8265575190
4574357449
2083457914
8890655347
5845679179
5262475274
5229759279
4447375344
7753977953
7447475441
7981220187
7857535427
3837939830
4202959851
4677230534
4207982916
2677997297
1259215229
3885588853
7607006006
4802990993
1120420104
5515757515
9767796097
8115889318
4111114716
5719016007
1405386717
9584486504
5526616718
8200329119
6031913385
2242712534
0181353725
6502579345
9258053426
5381153187
4422757425
7133119376
2270672346
4744428734
6022772072
3191811138
0101000110
5654754559
3151711377
3002789698
5002900151
6652762642
3151789589
3121753109
9860086066
5371777557
3828682832
7251021100
4226999952
3850789450
4268048727
3226755567
9271730604
9951049074
7167560551
7290763512
5399362502
3197434596
5763450209
5555954559
9932292321
3888663598
2227770212
1660063006
0743313184
3062414988
7777621924
8490506118
2973211184
4144774144
8108616580
1113111813
2288887128
2219223924

The puzzle

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

5566587556
6663668423
0095154310
1668556198
0750535709
7637434503
2014784158
3804454105
1839538416
8641236518
0274640047
0310707300
4485945484
9687587749
3270330332
3380329505
9270783604
4244745122
3214305894
4470330292
8513881511
3514333533
3043703403
7166861887
5427959484
8013708135
3314311895
3143889779
3167950004
3524864291
7452759141
4223719148
5733886777
2913526845
3639419875
5697576517
8848424748
1281212831
8481080147
2290009275
0929199219
2032707230
1868081600
8770507457
9704595747
8708766616
2902583323
1869725466
8778099862
0772375833
2233104487
6478441195
4403840583
1534844187
6319034147
4137130147
1888508159
6896344693
7474747467
3335331581
5111734430
8473729855
8718310767
1311390427
4963747897
5733733373
1918818888
4440340347
8102612621
5361939163
6657277655
5046960555
2293020030
4408440844
4615550155
2607586795
2214430789
4256259608
5415983249
4206984117
6598576673
2192022190
3746752408
2798740506
5192967290
8596599898
5742927428
2746074476
2178412824
3319739393
8522628856
7699994615
2453242653
5000005009
7587778573
8486894855
3581148615
1004195685
4806248813
7253804679
2183011032
1028028208
7192772722
0775474777
2822992792
0825707938
2088437471
2827705048
2183481054
2792068245
0586448550
0889280842
1400511414
9864268998
8135718833
1836762564
8804433538
0589780373
0880269793
1432238883
1575036626
1000898336
0759648307
9080789667
1634052972
3323737932
0268686626
3588858327
6666649666
9229992377
5858896885
0630434103
2241646121
9979760797
7744994379
4916494107
2162646105
8434044359
8794696329
3801594321

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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