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:
4278567510
4541764717
5630375883
1950479877
7666777766
1142262413
2429824880
7272779727
2295592572
5158839123
6344809123
4804157520
0502659153
5992559520
2032202356
3630634620
2451259123
3006307163
4610798910
0304609924
3013395521
3354924229
1010710711
6444669446
0316311331
4453934355
3600606660
6163868668
9041541999
7448747748
3010330303
8168568574
6019579539
6401741801
6073565041
7018574812
6513826753
4527355847
3749028479
3647168368
6723576663
3719137735
4669363469
1507011107
4845848485
3635423922
8986558026
6795130427
8689546534
8689198989
4796895774
3909430904
2155521555
6941146991
7432206574
5036641115
2500946732
3641094234
5833998533
4242646244
0901101917
8000502185
7707884777
0161160111
5172827251
6267161217
8390779387
5191162294
6280756371
1380844044
8162133383
0167107619
7230777007
5401711555
2582122511
1796376733
1406344656
7502103204
1270197040
5292333116
2781199006
8300194813
6497639938
1245676938
8139475138
5559995818
7678976983
5580775189
4958404958
4499339334
3548878416
6511166433
4248160133
8591278153
1070570151
7577465417
0599665039
6596588653
0061608816
7295868556
8761169515
3000497550
7983057515
9918559586
4888804518
8823323805
7774667470
5088998056
6133633661
5705015370
4446514546
5098358203
0554214907
7439238893
2206154677
0450013647
6659215501
1670361673
8416338663
0109440991
2845552244
2440501641
0400360894
3840565993
1109513286
0815366983
The puzzle
Given the above hint, what famous landmark do the numbers below refer to?
8445443808
2248442039
2465560064
0151566787
2491777471
8045245523
0526444544
5159559151
8268786676
7573447554
8510681681
2862125228
2245332235
3222347619
7865416330
3543428717
8725132611
2575193772
1888874318
1881714435
1863866434
1163728175
5801115055
1063663930
1588755558
8283888383
9143011044
6362863236
9707220097
7799333979
4891119198
4399165392
6792327987
4799158292
6391725808
9369154964
8251151068
1963932588
1211507065
4677492465
2473732407
6676196761
8861661568
8457547085
3666402468
9769976897
7825552284
7749477496
0330338030
6114273090
7745873894
8048436084
4481531467
4422633894
3227080123
4565408370
4564293002
3202521658
0107517500
1545222545
3962429947
4524040044
0224042004
9350636596
8679888696
9429594444
5613515733
9490563528
9399623137
9193531879
9489510050
9310832011
5336593414
7748923254
3429923681
7731699484
2116111621
8844439684
1365163451
4352529453
9252190221
6412062408
9114444191
3342842853
2223131290
5878234808
0405034491
7213731278
2072892198
7937992855
7964469644
6398339838
9074090047
5905194509
7308389406
6195250540
5995406704
9605380789
5164483982
6632563725
1212220122
4404194140
5999797889
1416293120
2747624145
4301943829
1333294759
8380440723
7432647674
8843088043
1970601260
9509119505
1830101764
1473694790
8842024553
7932699212
9632614039
6606829720
5565622656
0832152899
4973059620
6552758676
2202242820
2778920798
6995962659
6964609664
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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