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:

8688868990
5662212765
8858858489
5209922592
2228332028
1026232790
2152112998
9506552299
5286428795
4591952585
4856996346
2971007170
3674887868
1435615313
7043973377
1074940718
7876049951
7811072450
7434697955
2436967864
0983191989
4349242934
2262728672
9939292993
7877997878
7839725285
3369168690
7279234526
4942247495
7949205618
2529975443
4978356620
8568696607
6198356640
0013056132
5582555682
8733373138
0461016140
6650556605
4699499427
0626419577
9516771567
9844520487
1827139984
5907031667
4044730477
3797171592
6644919604
4648226484
7666778767
1747994997
8567775567
1111712711
0118770718
6837111877
8737963603
1818963572
9167753587
0568943895
1168736184
7717052751
2574370665
2506155800
2719321902
9107320472
9157399799
7704272747
3516003138
1551000115
2979332979
7252226728
0924282726
1527746723
0192288436
3521638133
5668338536
9367346733
8088086028
2125242158
3226228366
0241370677
6239400510
0638509187
4071812789
3850079689
7751776517
6576789675
0080802780
7907790477
8628882189
7683237632
1960559090
2048080042
5860556667
9602332093
2660387316
7646248842
9663237453
7860008784
2660527621
3409791388
4560193333
1919129072
4593357382
2648491681
3110311033
3853757388
4416664721
5828223682
3739591375
4718532895
8945975822
7330672078
7572830592
2853270572
2079772092
2228282825
3723131572
4777875855
9003930900
5216353964
4339096965
3616663894
7752653794
9686693062
1513153715
1661116955
6369693764
9993253492
1299969029
9875478548
4704880248
4702993403
6653570563
4151073548
5732773262
3850480543
5888585583
7646367413
9888999308

The puzzle

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

4180660814
3411159341
3151131613
9993737389
7734373774
2442271349
6742163874
5512359771
4206079615
7474379349
3933028512
5739513253
5070559325
6037326942
5816901316
2716971192
3187237017
6873386373
6930000060
5038555358
4762172466
5426642605
0550805850
2877927777
5473735557
0876189470
4453160717
2572913893
5460801342
4250811497
0187786833
8137742641
0621743753
0124767926
5981786205
5164714575
8431448488
6482744862
0937770917
7124887181
9509699095
1478618447
2769464417
8236882233
4401991404
8401920233
1209632369
1706465495
4738432930
9569163789
2447054865
2114853788
2447093145
4703499888
4715894103
1913390163
2255223325
8957779583
4248814888
5700758705
0227008385
1095905314
9287904867
6298017423
7207961252
7782976897
9298181982
6287027728
1404441440
0027600007
7926426389
8239852783
0700714553
9284172763
2491472583
8598514985
5252002529
5356656563
2642227386
7727272783
3011530844
3130519049
6138970848
0778438042
1024678844
9199138919
7033330032
3829838892
3304939044
7088770248
5935155195
0708118087
2774272429
3783537755
9955155515
5774581560
3918175771
3935143976
3738188878
9984175844
0554751288
2423655664
9812393525
3902425585
2277099228
9833191386
5777759278
4859889524
6633393664
5587555725
4939303399
8599885097
2029272009
5866765078
6529999526
1452893529
6198705326
9499509099
8047145597
1679173027
4803543950
9903206710
4928929181
3943548094
4943107517
2948333288
9884199899
8802980098
6923532935
4289242728
9953153919
0520772077
0319911209
9693535936
8939998399
0313163192
9953591127
8319766038
8339952591
0610264430

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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