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:

0602064474
5010658072
1164068045
5227568240
0197854271
8885558285
1170067011
0644421640
7702768472
2224664232
3399898999
1352715223
3973599339
3079110477
6843938398
1993944901
3979799253
7373504475
6899138815
3959177931
0198297414
6616128432
0498101477
0424409116
0644120813
1899191819
0624405420
5148757455
6197261212
0466806688
3276112272
6419191144
7625175167
1032331432
6485558685
7075109664
6686151458
6635530686
3812197550
1482175521
6496266429
8805685607
2188838228
3446743637
3144371243
9664636449
3596765427
0344166448
0194348208
6118886221
2956779976
8505808185
0763979676
2870332827
5787375575
8757362723
0865397031
2863321780
2585318426
1985992361
7707087065
7522595829
7582834006
2772200421
5027322529
3207575057
5002320405
2482222822
7522725757
4779887499
6066909666
0044803884
4881881453
4676567915
1971797181
8430697461
0521303483
6183101985
0635487934
7248497981
9433953497
5120152471
6667337666
0209023009
7677717176
4479453099
9620552176
9070923605
7858932097
0512927696
5209000905
3622932622
0089777700
4185615442
0601770717
0025760897
0689720108
5229711345
8009002852
4689787568
0499377878
3494837745
0227309768
0826673814
0297363716
5459399993
3116311153
0828800888
0287402740
0994229299
1306272494
1819263605
1506699351
9871454727
1315782244
1886777111
1375475947
1507616516
3719277923
9514959991
4392332442
6666706167
7704730477
9151991564
5009750792
4353431542
8335630769
7001530472
4398201162
8112936767
6700670066
7777775272
3133983913
1962226329
1561156129
8194676973
1674756919
3549876919
8201556272
9252983479

The puzzle

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

4128652338
4012481108
6790364423
7975862333
2225852323
5312550153
7073082037
1300661308
7836762378
3332234223
8608006814
3053855873
1111801184
4444979442
5198915859
5008419872
6795855884
7829315872
0698356853
3227001846
3313819729
4317873458
5913057446
5315857102
8316767681
5946959999
4345744746
2013828138
8612818681
5317005775
7081960667
9938207619
7936690657
3562620104
9593297867
4044190614
6606767057
6995116759
0000100108
6178737867
1030660331
5852888526
9918118529
2260620601
9104595431
0790418531
8588588603
5465698421
8976295326
9370620639
7937729973
5593835988
0068464640
9901990901
6647774682
2860235978
3418524672
6884075986
8182424981
1027434941
4080880818
1364333314
7859575885
4571654571
5274114455
1079149007
5889129590
5264591711
5578832254
1879558176
1419316657
5608045440
5758697450
2203407493
1555257450
7177515447
4444547457
9888898498
6999616993
6535151650
7305712715
7095596596
7999538257
4663713743
7093726892
4993554345
9009709799
9275577525
7261551529
1381218131
0533505530
5076356333
1377371773
9995695999
3521712514
3597385444
5575740688
5077518770
0933792429
2321636211
1487366521
6297354535
4497003063
9538344396
6496122706
9298192329
4284324332
6537667553
1426161611
0947574557
6385033155
0502483181
3317833005
0197030081
0422633131
1111133112
8888086780
5012125101
3333533635
0165050031
0373073260
6282172812
9964904697
8203830827
1541515451
3253870412
2790512457
9730575627
3142905252
0557779252
3054848154
1857518887
0760060600
1994091099
3362136626
0867125055
0854907486
3764065707
3397832381
0890194018

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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