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:

7110318476
4587513889
9604643125
4606190274
0798898825
3717113476
2006060020
8839898889
1113113165
4121441124
7154872210
1654349218
2445079328
2493277758
3971857217
7937959377
6767076710
2927777239
5205842258
5458547358
1867045308
7862689699
3867633141
7061173594
3187988653
3185135815
7037637770
3892686993
7961677965
1667967996
7603570055
3741434414
4533253444
5136966313
6649334442
5636928977
4649915019
3133623775
4746397934
7601342249
2888536851
8843937851
1418135951
3697437514
0983833559
1515515521
9035003059
7707667871
5126226514
3311531845
8631367210
4510527210
2283428211
5609041910
7603651402
1212151215
7777447189
0774067040
9989448918
4245423402
6235715164
9960627881
5412815114
3787517561
2082657964
5330315831
8870887104
5856858633
9179227914
5451449561
1325920517
7332186090
1321616072
9581567798
9381987059
7721517151
7320990002
8515111515
1592012994
9381618198
3353333333
0828448808
7820878027
2858688155
5441551445
7820546129
3423567127
0858654357
0348727060
5851449433
2943424444
1344212344
5641941551
2448088452
0069110660
1648986258
5348038838
9344219925
2449954496
0343259566
8913062544
4074984181
5263718173
8973059066
5954721100
5953595555
8919289929
0016000000
8374557943
4263742462
8775477200
9196639744
9581829264
8792847743
4321472774
2316117263
7250742740
0000070771
5583532685
9229429894
9729279422
3308580300
9930119190
8883288828
7279979992
3208528712
7730972515
3838242920
9988921323
9393206301
9699899999
9078306909
7865989665
8950585505
4042774724
7899740643
7042390224
4960817220
4050846171
8940139175

The puzzle

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

0586636613
8176101697
8122864076
6681562057
4374811657
3333711371
7699969897
7303732057
6656006656
8634454653
5391118236
6671125508
0697640931
3367166404
1467162824
6655155655
1437666431
3991119919
0373433507
2360222022
2308888088
2383383333
6020323000
0599659969
4142514546
6009328590
6190870685
6308223349
2020660501
2009519071
6619219616
8829120991
8952125919
4797077777
7462979474
7917185426
6959981490
6422145047
4467020586
4466005789
5151925193
3525224352
8806061800
0828478450
5455995544
5029295454
8912225142
7417024450
3385229893
3257274342
5356696653
3732557723
8518315388
7633663779
3354131423
8479811728
5015396753
0455496728
1246181689
6025931753
1008440810
8333598335
5127220711
4080404584
6287777826
7959070331
7749944786
7977297824
5928827337
3674000824
9674776746
8316777883
8329898812
7223627266
3849119839
3326145323
8623783277
8279758448
9369893507
8814664896
0488087408
1670161784
5872582572
4445455094
2242116224
3544855494
8241082484
5284957294
2943555192
8595311772
0876886600
2645680522
1679074922
3722214502
3218474520
0677770216
4101010122
8806886601
8855584525
9290229890
4904999240
4320142043
4894989984
2142552221
0725357333
0742144041
2845952458
8340100098
4890171240
4924914858
4761968626
0163683437
4577138664
4564281058
0827163255
0421114141
4703118703
6877267788
4164661466
0566866650
0889409878
1793441917
3474747477
9682668969
8940330380
3940361477
8644443100
9692572501
1472358060
3684670324
2610021560
8977885979
2224925894
0078884710
2567999562
1369291510
9084789544
6597625510
6837781860
2240425564

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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