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:

7630243633
7580443689
0627367989
1208732929
0745012681
8883332883
1949941989
9353353937
9933623629
4712817281
9804769768
4394954843
4882962320
6973953802
3151853868
9522595520
0064464860
3652552363
3772209772
8580853808
1919393911
5790078056
2022298022
4555558545
7757571045
8208853041
3118398042
3102798025
2817753045
5584051125
1899919085
4295797425
9399939949
8875776785
1119110160
1364410185
5180916760
9845417755
8832739185
7699499045
4301531886
0438581582
0716453586
6180491834
4096093834
9668996886
4342830824
5544764574
0818801882
3328383930
5962367770
4828089912
9211217352
2339323350
3691650272
7751157710
1671117252
2962829826
1338380312
6797767976
3200609196
7389905201
4065586411
3265409111
1383896510
0910995100
0906406414
1727277216
4644116494
4149149511
8222528105
3744474324
0888899388
7070093760
9883939198
4486473324
8167799185
0957879782
7468094128
4664598188
7036509307
6626111611
9976667676
6318080138
1232999933
7236945057
6616504993
7338608530
1216674242
1666030246
9222639292
6114039564
1756139365
0607329305
0998437004
4595539465
2722727792
5025223509
4854359364
0219129019
8899998300
8899891988
9787929907
7526667125
8179319738
0784099927
5319899968
4175211325
9034268308
9725499900
8294199899
6836866335
9213521195
8175335735
3692996392
8893568561
9614336370
8692592922
8292384324
8313987127
5728053057
9937599773
6853863853
3778577387
8253553882
5837582169
5777814276
6733065978
5133593842
6953504043
5401436382
5463961388
1466439391
1461974105
3462729881
1163131111
3779115777
5592759252
4561964441
7407444047

The puzzle

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

9075700505
8781381871
9987579590
7010700177
0049334939
0089703589
9080517708
9019798037
2085387250
9085704403
6327423462
7553378503
0686596085
9949489494
2542535024
5651095592
3853989494
9563783082
4583478462
6932199029
9139919939
9304223443
0649466466
8624148681
8939338683
0334186340
9734907909
8639454275
9939484542
8939358424
3595494554
5582552584
9015691650
6866468684
1997791798
4921254654
4389092694
6716891650
5471192674
3129364658
2729224927
8683886704
9829919812
2629992609
3933333911
4620614721
2048829615
6443482919
6511514619
8672799622
6250456440
3709830006
8938438849
5910611199
3522992339
8238907230
8220445664
3230411770
3518568514
6520966023
0096900969
0807000670
3146134113
8487347888
2985151929
3147301870
1987977529
8847195834
3187184768
0495039042
7949479034
5541964264
5649490966
0791843026
0597964544
2741557411
7669467944
0099590200
6597999966
5582885585
0753234230
9365432282
1359624212
0388332266
5673232680
6436737636
0614614680
7222082700
0222232209
2222221212
9561742979
2551848004
0790724372
2897132224
3152217377
1422114222
2449442429
1461616704
7342827384
7871838077
5338153618
4455525456
6946006479
9605606599
6962770267
4480050297
2061505658
4706625598
9043980469
3880506558
8526429421
6124066484
6589023266
0486480508
6524987526
6516911919
4181814188
8429428947
8582008822
6134013661
7437775834
5305530753
6633561653
9130331073
7757758767
1700231753
9779835777
0556555043
6776750777
6149238763
5612294823
4416497809
7610384753
7749690203
7420780578
4710774040
5659251592
7417247777
7626476662
5142666444

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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