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:
2422828488
6972979326
8628262088
6515972695
3410679486
8008472380
2289772481
3157072388
6907679681
2672310526
4677514453
1502341450
2675322452
8173571357
4395393434
0672110576
1407991471
2636036033
5772721257
5676575551
8484608205
3583078237
4522355232
7757771557
6665005601
5868658816
2218221278
5979125991
5251295291
1621666821
4121514524
8862215591
6687765824
9209515921
4859721521
0603425227
2002420431
7808878084
2727657621
0944913940
9351870040
0758253441
4668727650
6681379987
9164707957
1979813604
9231888521
1976182053
9564124721
8264118664
9036497003
1971699171
2501415422
1500815010
8513113350
2500554022
5722575254
7977779709
5545854717
4404959309
5724254350
0142114557
5247253750
6351151513
8909589199
0918419900
0108910800
6308927577
8908165819
1158536929
6811198064
0308146936
1538505318
2037150713
4411211421
5715391753
9533452313
7025041413
0175992463
1547612757
9323505397
3070303076
3023332069
1751579115
7555157411
4343473016
8892127009
6065939175
7318157019
2006659611
2539898352
8663556663
3461111466
1939133519
2563183001
3231143785
3469128374
3939346153
3509116895
2565111625
8667786276
1558515558
6286778466
5783076218
3893918266
9070646418
9730716755
3038115668
9995737559
2330020003
0610434061
7547779945
3138474203
1103483003
4053763269
4118029209
1858939003
5411102205
2465993785
7495866849
5481305625
2365152556
5489999599
3421334142
5411441414
7638873785
The puzzle
Given the above hint, what famous landmark do the numbers below refer to?
2471073660
8175002544
6157021850
2149186641
8479399734
5159050054
6425765467
1245644612
2171121117
4892376203
1270334445
4478309659
2492309869
9280339883
2792339329
4272342232
3478988239
1868181681
2643060142
4459696594
7517676577
3273171137
2613106390
0279626919
4675198120
9443012223
4613690242
9000020187
1550401425
0900631069
2202772260
3118270087
9945379427
6980671427
4298830227
5971641087
1844498214
7314516457
0660600516
1991312893
0358896453
7841930496
8252398596
5277430417
1829718427
5666316835
5258826528
0702848027
1933193713
7798896833
1497403330
1932026025
7256443323
4677813728
9566299330
9221602775
9584219806
6586148893
8586956889
9324222299
6826166223
3065990500
7281478272
8933030889
9692296292
0257887605
4133113111
0933162900
1132324815
0632291823
0237217985
1143304047
7888887872
2444884225
0113601166
9394994793
9691037773
6897194290
6665201213
5853381105
6846601173
5476777657
2253622923
9313292291
3557757357
9459760700
5246787196
9116344546
5553680892
3473322387
5202480245
7224328016
2470420717
9388218446
1171117427
0056020006
6112611246
7752727715
7578588754
1899513754
6760219860
0855568794
6156879194
6046353604
5647752747
5458418154
6666969860
9333373990
4810186837
5618342401
1119360354
7419322192
1619191611
0818383080
7418371777
4830043024
7148111144
0405331069
5756422208
1706309130
1576962667
0476339747
5752455475
1556956591
5203025032
5655255555
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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