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:

4345443465
3499939941
4003301934
9284908948
1015150151
1111859135
3371331961
8157709964
6028901946
4472339168
2858580852
0023880202
0703376003
0000560150
1668717836
3763470053
2252080806
4197670252
4214180151
9297510830
0878405949
0560101741
4389118997
7728608924
3271018799
4424772459
4435003943
8899118997
5639995631
1122111727
9070826723
7049536238
0042845152
7057881836
2822585841
9027555995
5749554965
7550666566
2876886887
7322822282
7976254198
7146725663
3089522227
3996952120
8180543256
4144514454
7080900609
8978298228
7586066785
3509779770
9667018103
3587013767
6560039951
7184543122
7190903215
9347595797
6647557446
2198015021
3580508055
7567967967
5553772543
6622202662
7521621567
6844446460
3983939861
1719836840
0097807861
8015136561
8571202541
3826336860
7235594566
9774538200
7794817904
6699502120
7991503607
6961599956
7279877982
6794896487
1998595551
7635577530
5297950070
0053984418
1073527590
5053997698
5253562595
0353773755
5773830838
5095955090
4089500040
1280991001
8200870060
4280818060
2768051060
9257019630
2393013642
9666979646
6333030062
5151551564
2323282030
3211013060
5565455545
9330090309
1057010000
5014886151
1262311136
1510308322
1115431067
5355472967
1360083071
5262855848
6696396397
7660701767
2323362332
7471466874
8857557860
3500257864
0163297897
5189106797
7647107795
9487462792
6000009690
7585383305
3103130113
4444460344
9899990118
0780233110
3688167394
7261769314
1002080194
0743760614
4204224440
5285555872
3433434343
2212684216
8875151948
8516634442
0096854944
7340651843
0249824342
0776724376

The puzzle

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

2266737347
5112534716
1668135586
7506935596
5242031342
0425335540
5535635746
4444004287
8121831782
4661167314
2587757287
2441722177
5812218512
0587959257
9551195511
9881961192
0557190648
0541738302
0547995715
2456709215
4283266592
5523499330
0383086508
2524794635
6893727000
6313939143
5824444482
4294000240
0593909999
2587752825
1858738571
7593771589
8585883458
0191110891
2020392320
2183092371
9235382589
9490210521
3215098811
1310392580
1850758056
7384071079
0313057658
1954341173
6461257083
5166151156
8550558075
6262747622
5577777528
6658867683
8395205345
2643265392
5485291975
5064016315
1042495293
9944999342
1311125313
6699666992
3383300385
5957818275
5508438435
5483433548
1587404459
8403485876
1557707766
1505755758
4503835804
1693469446
5683445683
8457646675
7933336935
5000506556
7765756673
2609019062
8585535849
3928255932
0368336345
4659506866
2189656543
2036536649
2852258283
3402230042
1151775117
2265021036
8816118866
6771218832
0672215112
8933250039
5330115236
3842811266
5218427901
6597322691
7434552606
1137476306
4476058896
9539557399
1202222601
0602608926
6327652766
8597875896
9091368961
2360969934
7751096241
2381865914
7625095285
5862598265
6460466340
9616669017
9859595981
6569266254
9108215409
5654797849
4883595603
4884547499
0500616699
9992996299
3166615663
9744405449
7008907809
6115116656
9565050695
8686184695
8159380698
0355484690
8241474833
7663376643
4568357638
5878680675
9448484895
5892953298
0847812759
7813310210
0883712313
6303719113
9054419324
5125919255
7447482714
1144214422
0891118310
8808880183

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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