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:

4858722178
5080704656
8856769076
5204997186
7828497318
5799795387
7871229178
0772292070
6311303116
6660567656
1320818100
3868338633
6462224262
0303030500
7438114814
7363145608
0428367459
3363873704
3863562434
7833198223
8538178506
6697178940
7966682540
9295877454
3568258252
2086558402
5842582254
7121227041
9297952970
8588878555
3987303004
2793086257
2562331942
2929827843
3527120979
9329393993
2682338836
4567864457
2728112281
3993883359
2578761114
2246709872
2266741249
2766985902
8279749206
0273737703
2878072778
2748926989
4666746676
8999555898
2403534117
2281463057
7366638912
4135185913
1167235910
3793373993
4284804982
1177717017
5635565150
1737738917
4399393483
0609369304
3955579505
3260343620
9353593352
3394699300
5423893323
0042869152
0279573520
0146793482
9804537789
3148296793
8609716728
3922017792
2035697742
5797795707
3738737383
6951416694
7479997742
7286236728
4724387234
7956575965
9871187914
6662642566
5550555758
7079275966
8543185955
0708677965
1349682914
4320377464
4822282249
1180101181
7122331712
5366331646
3356336580
1539831742
2178531620
7017131146
8064331781
8496501689
7096585169
2326057849
5436754571
7322704896
2845560657
7826778978
5898000000
2482542828
2533223353
3345053330
5197099215
9245959949
9005000505
5843555455
4496994669
9447542519
9006029756
4807965055
5005065547
5796065745
8589686859
6024777044
0259555950
7620448606
4400555444
7250763758
8024455370
6229536260
4603573940
8484604182
2700902297
4020294202
4966654621
7987262798
9995139159
3494634708
7735309101
8923729258
1606469157
9590734258

The puzzle

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

9305390233
1583331845
3733336217
6662556222
7186774618
3386276215
7510796337
5112336233
9756131245
6088736628
9591540843
4584227484
3581962927
4904503015
7917948720
4914594491
9580988059
7497549594
9501858510
4674226257
1301913919
7606107266
6794066006
0914991991
9095959995
1306904997
0711963144
7705950463
7018079952
9314961397
2929060792
1910188011
9100990519
0994929420
5757558547
6053450010
0641720019
6079558711
5554989596
9627868012
3337433443
1027211122
0093033300
1005303435
3472993733
3332904455
1037333712
1427281663
3402974679
1053366890
3304639017
1864008637
4429364137
7935012137
0333834011
6788714687
1601168011
1135327137
9131135911
7070002027
6097597752
3781690294
4051200289
6017156285
3787145714
3594115181
4717071411
6911669666
6051330066
4487227748
0110810658
7445991658
2314397659
5629597069
9901212089
7515778651
9109892180
3181811068
7336997653
3838363389
0007767750
6464264842
6630000386
8393820338
4333131451
6651831751
6732274382
2719260438
6230400451
3577467351
4945597321
8418338123
3160259284
4275939861
8706239131
7743737424
3339119383
9890190168
6551256121
5038858838
9945495450
5042155114
0545054545
9098099098
9218771728
9912742766
5098788198
9245413323
9598151428
9502114250
9808099461
8336877028
3758776059
8550280105
6512479499
1873376183
0022290028
6767887461
9675673695
9993999009
2068137397
2879114390
4349245025
0713516638
2532810098
5543334357
8320028038
7951515775
6499646990
0506550620
7708680870
8863330888
3382038322
6219861116
2229332922
6383323669
8768046943
8369924248
3829616913
2319350118

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.

Post a comment