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:

5134455451
7283738787
1375911394
3817081733
6263939266
5163989702
9317009690
7237480198
1173475857
6183468253
6782786277
5100991000
9164166181
5749194117
3817373133
9747166062
4789186540
6717753607
5767188245
9110705731
4722267122
3399190193
3838110383
1118118511
2559595152
9506890383
5093495183
8231310123
1768667512
8489998221
4797654758
0821564828
1191440102
0191515283
4127526909
1867551135
4823638833
2191661211
4126442164
0397439439
4706309641
4707917903
4457706620
4757730242
4747984332
9754374444
4447947777
6743555347
4707770049
4401204404
4973394703
0996006598
1757167175
3534143301
4481515448
0884096393
7995996501
1357396648
6531804103
8607503741
6877275381
1883120882
6655173049
6851386075
6853148359
2883133222
1377211727
6851365513
6467555654
9915393719
1663876813
4495449544
8847447838
4337043073
5407595405
4695099433
1030794873
5147479013
9288846043
7259273533
9808677082
9060481050
4316572088
3080391008
5173692052
7882772288
2900092052
0820221280
7550377352
8883881038
5053236232
8070505796
8753821912
1767381543
1283302053
1263313223
8757557757
1053500552
5483838553
2470670266
9885098993
6280565280
0457740070
9957335377
4259352959
9989760697
9880074922
0987328484
9257392279
0685016231
5175957557
6920890002
9717299171
3156434486
8062556802
3962921325
6162910321
8766251527
0120291172
5760897041
7059590077
5138853858
3125551552
4725272525
5010350935
5728309814
3139573695
9110565321
5018861456
5019367671
4505002884
4345975416
0585045287
0445303090
4706903910
5305999555
4586343666
6507806577
0345044544
4765756717

The puzzle

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

4044076580
0500838887
8706066724
6017996860
5266230567
1758577587
0008696080
6000060760
8424272844
2256136521
8422056821
2741558201
9617051213
2732551813
4839651762
0053357303
7571454731
1165656618
2223251232
3108138861
0443144030
1435432144
1323112123
9698189869
3963933399
0443125284
5643439185
0995447558
0443402674
0643915401
5586686552
9008040898
5937275237
6464646915
1914191614
3082495818
8929646815
6207746914
6565686197
9352880917
7247287228
1338331836
1977979571
1151845198
9959996589
6565237591
9370675176
7217799238
9882144598
8960095179
8855441241
8245168064
3835246787
2454376285
8605303982
8295159252
8600262200
5155333335
2434023009
3824448283
1696174267
6340277590
0836177520
0035438149
0347678296
9799777899
6836338660
5592005597
4666777246
4254544522
7939970609
3427071029
4339090737
1726019113
6298347033
4436334463
3728003880
6260067060
7917779171
1799999191
4470878044
9819909471
8008309738
9646624966
9869556289
5681659276
7361428980
6984574771
3109709076
6921059768
0714556855
3385484831
1568594220
9590894401
7626899759
9559959259
2644584256
8337558730
4766656875
0120192401
6356436663
5847334834
7075007004
4885181518
6984594944
4945300460
5045555982
6057045883
7395548750
6845352871
5455424265
9822292102
6067770622
2828280332
2323932297
3918430362
7802138292
3069420622
8403782365
5167390137
4176067167
9819999191
8266222222
4766462444
5154155154
8866943350
9864924042
4166433232
4176174178
3816450936
0546452763
9972996875
4360421524
0153184738
9680182599
5656155561
4173443475
6972494624
9581985918
0340703370

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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