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:

7777784577
4480778240
2272272202
4471343414
9191997189
1884892182
6256888500
3909977207
4593884204
8907488304
2998668682
6090060000
3346744449
1105111010
2488338282
2098743881
3398656492
2688387044
3085100889
3008621751
4727243788
5488084586
2258074510
4078444586
1761834708
4686333846
4148646718
3884883586
0855845508
8080084080
6006440036
2542002495
5754351374
3031003031
3681351364
5886851034
4909003436
2152701393
5148042094
3994851096
5855085057
9992904192
1675661958
5085758007
0777778607
6340478057
9851754952
9382088057
4118150607
2040468907
4390024172
9270527762
2901932166
2009450766
0855450528
3381131782
2777677266
6142424126
4758852548
1626020166
2452422552
8476774777
3628996239
1423888413
8595750755
3575981180
8655408061
2475320432
8622876844
3478706133
3331733173
3737116773
7111241277
5505705712
1747110755
0498230177
9956030777
5201512717
9191110272
1548936273
1043726055
5773997085
5983127853
4380974633
2291294685
7542574452
8117313658
7899896897
6743477643
5224824085
5561244955
9948905128
8471761884
9571773549
2468781082
9568999965
8965757857
5071666070
2478724818
3351253311
8876986668
1852915548
6154645415
6234322343
3567575555
6166307155
1554515054
8567522951
8054579818
3854345835
2550704794
1069108394
8727100644
5316259691
9357498341
3393998343
7759759797
5045773745
9086608691
7444774394
2485691054
6229878025
1372040138
4441466123
5828271224
2933373224
8838231288
7400470045
3918998153
4464666034
9081410890
8943666869
7694364366
9472542694
3787939733
3491947341
9481622203
3771400536
9032922958
9084448002

The puzzle

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

7950500205
8358283522
5831315588
5458055505
5782998799
5952563347
5452536637
7754580032
8432336310
5352359741
7635218187
7740297356
3180522600
5632296368
3840926502
3746576476
5847282284
7630269033
6112616611
7665977657
0059326289
0959072638
9913510429
0018581548
0819344575
5517315157
7219527957
7809399970
0053035006
0938500938
3562353263
9609000189
9479336749
7700208772
9901117904
1682458973
9688753782
0501901274
5059206782
5418606249
8789011963
7293418187
9908011136
1853211187
6717211618
4164314368
0071711017
5570171653
1616111186
9978808907
2866254826
4032402438
4476666484
7611828716
3074739407
2697838786
7187362736
9656866424
3543906848
3989338406
1755874620
3377072596
8143934696
7583034820
9153834571
6666774626
2935235521
2500202590
0440474770
4949442179
8644518116
0379312081
0167715791
7077304863
0512414781
8441914968
1160702716
8355835893
1184415481
5881688161
8925756931
7380819894
4936826821
7087883491
1927760463
7980778907
4337843333
8826081602
1685265868
9920992009
6261662941
4487778940
1104919045
1103231452
0730930079
6102810945
1017037959
4804110940
6037768972
8410268445
3504444444
1267881171
0435636095
2071177012
2513952952
0461902550
2073945194
2977906000
3217427336
2565846775
5815285751
8502111120
1157411475
4417544554
2781318112
4711121782
4417160950
8417316148
2815498931
8847469829
6515660551
3397636927
7372937392
2252227925
5634575456
2943875321
7811737921
3104665302
1756237455
7374765391
0904066773
0284004413
3204396628
1954050471
9900325982
0904330900
4282622244
9600809096
3154051453
0950095199

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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