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:
5696305200
0891650300
4009272447
6969326726
1639391366
6094090040
5861444436
4906549066
0479277947
4403876524
0403725031
4901961408
8904329761
2105757221
0901719790
4404949444
7403343434
8909608884
6064370636
1165614156
3209590235
6099990606
1007070631
9245110656
0508300235
5085094656
9674910151
8708808888
0456455500
4320440423
9187779714
6700703888
0159371468
8768836675
9829444879
9926446015
8334459596
3987451446
5661451160
8506451238
5333554534
9554959291
6166061006
0334053040
4884864468
4101598793
9027947095
1966437669
3928077793
1577777615
4814148191
4540424043
6114391643
6631331769
3538302853
4558469554
5575775527
4969336094
2413079857
0911775924
4291572854
5850106858
8650002854
0275777022
9576955577
6959696969
0040333300
6976308644
7976762814
0579968077
0375646204
9959937373
0587665108
0067062607
2333513325
4774717248
4113017627
6842665105
4870165355
2973813223
0111112108
2284002489
2223725473
8833331788
0560136190
2470032479
0287124170
9301022779
2753301478
7364466490
9499118969
8989998997
9107970991
7444734476
1650675471
5666028955
0870928465
5449918496
4135074473
8483048454
6473746323
4385447765
5965389891
4473114734
8190391311
0985779759
6361015100
5471671754
4442442844
4335355431
7327371327
8880151886
9994271834
2298052381
4702851426
0253162841
2685745344
2606166690
0158201085
8481999418
7916717711
8698743195
5108218299
2151776894
7451246665
0106729320
The puzzle
Given the above hint, what famous landmark do the numbers below refer to?
4682944944
3882882838
3623923663
5010330003
4981503273
3622867222
5723330052
3913928181
3611976240
8849694586
2526262212
7111310743
4148911849
2635251883
1629811249
2411867746
0128417543
3292161744
4396836846
8653170846
6995870808
1502697458
7794770447
6885896858
6666661616
9144481049
1170047101
1603460750
7685708752
1666498280
1228051459
5141550451
8252292852
8484888488
5505751770
6827168219
6281456823
4531024727
1362536402
0549277467
6983319863
5578777572
5226736725
4302420403
5437554537
3739711458
3531204082
3730208655
9533126457
9569799777
3413243463
3551533155
3734232727
5640146404
0994779479
0758075807
1163316733
0764777646
0994507608
2964790068
2996378742
1764768269
0961019576
8501336322
1601713268
3836216369
9260814364
1834316348
2222214222
6753077360
9136936619
4444444344
7235989494
6616273416
7365675683
1016259496
5866579586
6766335676
1341313414
3009880693
6864950496
6742327012
2346787839
1165874024
9862701711
9767197717
0156800666
4875558577
2885323318
1342737213
4735984546
2815075355
9815038170
4811948103
7134991917
4714077775
2885985899
9615000190
5031000103
7155557805
5253552583
8888810882
9100111809
5300252703
6475041829
6816450835
1393557582
7169311782
1666436194
7304707443
6604684776
5548775408
2830276708
6268837408
8627937448
0993737744
6703017462
6669233296
4448004088
7113713570
7005719072
7687613592
0094713056
1848233092
2071433570
2074803576
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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