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:

2406333266
6665866856
3775037737
1671717157
7802777878
3806301369
7562302904
7672750861
2765709581
3865817436
1208660026
0994886048
0122221220
1606866160
9351593535
1622583667
0998229540
1224882315
1982814600
0108539812
8538189691
3537949840
5488294636
1486014226
1406960993
1408111188
0567007077
0086980090
5107000011
8436244742
7009777977
5942425920
2897187181
5187887878
2698112968
7997766466
2698081005
2809743362
7197862725
5082808815
3740396026
6163649810
2153592894
9823506123
3823986085
9853595559
6100361113
3642643666
2723372353
6813933396
3443535435
0084878801
3777387135
7777596757
9177794127
1522495151
6722697157
8226695137
9722397405
0313195130
0830540090
9480673604
9884675355
9740050850
9380505383
1720551707
9341043493
0843630849
5884288285
3440244224
9414327891
2315680568
2219688275
2214620024
5394581972
4409595405
9614664169
5449644444
8219334192
2394822242
2653589419
7653034922
4833517060
5633618955
7854902444
2134554325
9793673369
7853037850
5259995055
7635556567
5908408966
3431462652
6042962752
0717505699
8536290362
9666990662
6695666966
1621162312
0010008199
1159115951
5504068364
8522034357
1108503178
5588913182
5622541309
5124959924
9882558559
7704777470
8537007978
5628020800
4559961297
0552625940
6594222799
4573269406
2593383935
6523935527
4373272342
2744374774
0553250200
0592600522
2087002207
9345541555
2224112414
1962331333
5462555265
2322561279
5012083553
5922115924
5962377784
5962587533
5257314746
7388413746
3162106755
4095694000
4076894436
1080718750
4514444445
7064404716
3336703736
8868196018

The puzzle

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

8553050835
8135568531
9095309835
3374703744
4434110442
3190058844
9941650845
8166008844
8891609835
3808230435
6006666603
5033550503
2119421492
6333836833
7555552584
0207052493
2564586893
6820050483
6134230682
0129526503
1147402194
9451172627
9995671138
0297476154
5511674697
3766336627
2164204120
7777771757
4141842148
5141415694
8682200589
4921893297
5938172587
3624593247
9803212877
5100190281
0728002847
5363363591
1599819185
7799799779
4492442944
3415714111
9478577956
2894789249
1585115888
2895781793
1575745459
3475113625
2832521098
1484749131
0955291383
6771852574
6179818383
3130972188
3100903082
6930336066
4100901048
4155854855
0171011000
3339233292
1625728811
3551008617
1354928729
0473220884
8804218289
1813110883
2211401214
6296262229
7630908697
1124428461
6530503568
1995585913
0616974691
7471271422
1441194610
0979673563
5098684418
7761871512
0229096523
7964794668
0084780004
9655665695
8491229999
7101977371
0927171100
8155103624
9084723562
0024684548
0181449346
0007701716
6666666126
1094004190
7732252637
2132329311
0430772104
5791474196
1852564136
1219954122
6427359636
2185176317
1616154376
2139529283
1615109657
8299140678
1635149330
8116555185
1357573151
8135255552
2609773227
7794174714
9991835428
9357161319
9130858329
7885265338
3242431422
5184958459
9953135319
9092290028
7171761792
5585335328
4335342360
9601011419
9628379518
9222474718
9631367195
6438556334
9625069296
3132333333
9209409427
4851858888
8111151184
5808928958
0554494405
9999019094
7118178211
4026251294
2643719211
6949699015
7583929481
7949096008

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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