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:

4330780485
8338196262
8835185059
8692754919
4790702510
0730555570
2342224522
8688116888
4866767874
0390703007
4267157835
1342858026
2286497089
4752656665
0121057626
7788756785
7045559067
5633553026
7678667807
9263992639
8856358113
7676672363
5511525412
7722719277
7318718731
2537875762
5661329437
1335912731
5649472313
1168622318
5340290959
7390849389
4571458281
7075769261
8650059337
6002350237
9995669559
1881128361
8848849888
0332003962
0020778855
0095587010
0025605442
2010670708
2928769591
7080777000
6022002600
2098888280
0675667677
3917639606
3883063917
2296893917
2262101088
8922901121
1832898187
6166996118
7919393157
2288138120
8050108951
6080701087
8997887997
8948588898
9832399393
8500202825
5990777299
8998760412
8897701356
8848519840
8900333227
5900950040
4202525490
9889990958
8533227835
8882686725
6571710475
1952695750
2717620750
2275520838
6787520470
0335899758
7268210135
2003618846
9553618136
7089252849
3127233819
7101110817
6952332856
8774878143
3335333935
0040505549
9669996169
1331888113
3333373383
0594959076
5825552580
7346698310
8831856389
3215258163
7122393780
2916852380
9974995798
6994449836
1017771807
3343847138
4884778264
3932891897
7507779898
4123877808
3081175908
1430645708
9900979009
8744648647
6700861082
5758858917
2711178281
3063278987
3700968717
2856669017
3154671087
8817878982
2155885102
9448343438
5558585581
3414141131
2283331218
7787831211
7654741411
9225583431
2359431231
3929940181
7397934929
3647297178
0361216741
7177964454
3167903035
0107970905
3671261727
1351959139
5147111477
7163916976

The puzzle

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

8909542801
4501712769
8255249631
0329945625
6817835829
3392739732
2303223720
1121141501
9556945659
5118112815
6553633650
3618333633
5001101155
4554445554
6205990529
6511125965
5554694350
4001125392
6657148052
3003609075
4723933887
5715911343
4264198273
1300134995
1203141824
1205959022
1364114141
1825212655
4814181814
5753999753
3694060949
2405542425
8960789908
3226777662
1660558555
8295581659
8464789802
3664017382
3690570367
1224165177
9191652014
6403628195
8400142706
0131428022
9690142160
6191111161
3490494044
9100491449
0623606626
8691817186
7385233783
3534553345
6924169629
6758258759
9587799558
7584769431
7787279383
6537196865
6505296544
3555137396
1583023494
9358512637
5424875695
9833875675
4083819699
5571175615
1401413494
2267752776
9996779609
3339529335
1728258061
0798663867
4717056774
4757911964
0902909958
1717979497
0958499588
0792002220
4807303833
6724627726
0362626260
1269519568
5191295121
0889595588
7389777779
0889561101
0282775242
5162528168
6369536323
5389541699
5266533723
0164755231
2702856159
0218936775
6394433273
2912716273
5588985159
5094454091
6536633568
8785738725
1919951299
9989991687
1200632601
4292929632
8161111668
1007012662
7028619638
0624142267
0545459692
8343121631
8986609272
8749851757
8391336954
7673841745
7562457354
2772972974
7553757355
5501131255
9978489547
7724146712
1440780366
1044323654
1780461800
1474391129
5744361811
5445334553
1634438634
1088308800
0254552502
0770000077
1937847083
1845336553
2176646863
9898668483
5353632787
3333337763
7747866487
8434368483
7120242017
8878586856

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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