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:

3859698146
9899623111
5890627840
7790857971
8319253541
1887178171
9425923649
1101993810
5171777591
6144151246
4033645340
6580555558
9336739333
4060464466
1510711717
9310540290
6336710000
4530417445
6020714570
9583792771
7840910952
2926712592
0343910975
5094370671
7585830572
4644914986
7710373501
5359010695
2255332572
6900046900
2799622667
2625366676
7415252121
1616361616
4725332552
4626321900
2619395815
2125346352
2626393378
1729381676
3517320863
3540895084
8883865003
8146604003
7376470834
3664774638
4490995084
1981710873
0066461004
2707220267
1263735603
3828206916
3506588620
1391454262
3325506694
1321531122
7245020444
3623262637
4598444554
1806717678
1789468470
6931181504
1731156738
6781164286
6131965846
3019111911
5133113111
1931030011
6768668675
2981929999
9530084438
5036527427
0212427328
2519727851
0735857022
5514157411
7330037037
8844424842
6675577256
3221223328
0355250535
1817077201
3236833386
9118338383
8553358833
3113367462
0613202055
8155280519
8153037140
3133376316
7777447587
7161919607
5118535351
0520701572
6705557064
2846655504
4041409577
9442581667
0555149002
4995705074
7798397907
5333666353
5006909600
5098666090
3050777305
3098787179
5758328778
5738683385
4793669115
3730320027
6217473040
1204752330
8219410723
4314138232
4414786751
4264772444
3003440000
6414114341
8022338800
1317517311
6465666764
0497394373
6774567677
5819661518
2406552025
5716329180
0797689825
4866580343
6767653391
6404544390
9999613796
3417479014
6676583765
7744484147
2611511625
3251079695
5319281127
0599683045
9502383367
0451483665

The puzzle

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

0639598395
1093850794
0347955994
3010152999
8692290118
1295552913
8549495498
0118118199
4504040505
4477441794
2522389949
1426839175
3170259975
0077397985
0977299381
5759797375
6399953916
8989859981
7725397352
4959889149
3361745124
2596051014
1506645724
0211135725
7007837016
7105157016
5541995117
4994444194
4004545014
2572339725
7039960405
0941799819
3231042860
6936560265
7234965961
3081913103
6193731697
0936000993
7741577752
3234003202
8229379586
5620168635
6290191497
0188960888
8257705333
0199111910
8230289882
5327733272
3252335523
6288928282
0000201820
3183131281
5858466584
7412772464
4443338442
9616031842
5171438220
4045138500
3749561444
0544136424
9126726972
3392139323
3128923812
8779670666
1901910109
3102186186
1396770382
8592945525
3929992786
1392954394
7670226727
0257337395
2143321121
6252522222
5043535344
2642348862
2258545603
0153552105
5273264995
6257368121
3380440343
0469264869
6673262372
1235993592
1772572721
1789903132
0689361313
6235923570
1673250597
1332595545
0531915350
7786490653
8109506953
9962678658
3437418958
5285595822
6668418634
0787070358
3808508350
4051914953
3573685606
3665635931
2007329053
3607381819
1066380919
2666333662
3847030807
3069606666
6575357667
1405614195
2003527939
6214056999
4067537933
8554297669
9910617333
5144716047
7673327663
3337007333
9636636968
9759957799
3062206023
1479919979
5297792075
7177272721
6069990746
6077696029
7816292049
1796499026
3001592728
5698392773
5375537506
2526862856
5884248024
5051901659
2823998231
1648431801
2703398656
1781241621
9100262551
4143492756

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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