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:
4928561194
4024016434
3980620154
0070411054
1141110134
6630396035
5105061050
4444121114
6781181691
2114876265
1774750321
2204703561
2104722013
2874778748
1224624468
1119777119
6104740064
1730878081
9979272229
6303306283
9448981914
3733373534
9030473219
3989971508
4028926233
9920783624
7376371683
2077319524
0959904674
1066419526
9193610524
8777793579
2266600226
1141114911
7667393673
4499439544
3016477006
3860968817
5066487628
5018705072
9268778612
5020752775
5876887676
3318413433
0906609906
0010011780
6541050401
3893818493
6933556339
3554818789
6642818382
3840614692
5778958339
6711811382
9720945917
4491418690
8403263100
7931895690
5205393250
1606065610
4450445307
2111911192
3084668037
4622162612
6874177811
1345111154
6902333616
4362323791
6924108878
2752349803
2776227490
6342158988
6091558927
0549200987
3064726887
5996076829
9885556889
7726776727
2120908982
6687662876
7301040173
3871881188
0912419926
8396969988
0157515550
3397563756
8997609412
9152403229
9191980665
9996920958
2444344446
0256965020
1963669616
7392191911
2344948588
7466677032
1844135793
0853952666
4254106761
6891364848
2483672268
2649360452
1843381884
6873373338
3882777873
2349424649
1691196611
6448664648
4508545058
4444346341
7595175511
0777797610
5266095341
7833945510
7496642571
6639042561
2942147658
6568256668
8058958855
4878848044
9305155033
9568127368
5051959673
5098217030
4318201942
9898138620
The puzzle
Given the above hint, what famous landmark do the numbers below refer to?
4286884026
2021801210
4356065346
2670176160
4050163941
4677130051
2606884124
4026085476
4026684939
0925867383
3166337381
8376084729
7095857186
6666336686
5535557534
1105957119
1844744781
3378787323
9725895225
7846697695
5893007624
9405292215
8922992287
0110838015
3533535525
9102111692
7499197124
1021187180
2851752438
2452423410
8851724930
8027170022
0851011850
1452882212
3366433336
2177727714
6695942174
8285736334
2468796879
0810292225
2272992220
7477979469
3355356345
0023202130
8487848874
6639916196
8877877881
4756547568
9559555397
4929017151
0279155556
2340848386
1242617154
9509416591
7100210200
2973121219
2174727777
3857334835
2167166470
2903266761
3979195389
2854269839
7877710970
1749979410
4363306433
0006600626
2273379232
8982279413
4411709235
9440949932
9509576432
5661546433
0577451399
1299351319
4369753313
5449696391
9933336999
5533355333
2251353211
4431341338
4999599519
2687585762
6033337063
3493399314
4984778443
9377075063
2677238713
5131897433
0118789064
3930597482
6306635006
4244772248
5486530485
1899119983
6487615488
5167212905
1067133441
2240225488
7993712448
3307012828
9393413825
8324043515
8886819875
3033515038
4668882676
1261216216
3222223825
2448849824
2852522225
4141881141
2566776226
8054990450
8082561013
4522936026
8084769599
4581533648
2181978425
7242725474
7850756150
2878200482
6159723159
8940799849
2879722227
6850786563
2172221122
7458984477
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.
Comments
Big Ben
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.
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.
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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