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:

5378487533
5191885117
8103711887
5376355557
3998737999
8998367979
7971856800
3396366413
5301471482
3393709898
0700777001
2025005268
0905994305
1131334131
5017710047
0587897141
7570077308
1755510001
4201014747
7020204145
1385999115
0932833793
2369039300
0343110400
7755577575
1955168236
1363215899
0789990742
2335558348
0985996826
7577257422
8683965498
3114559341
5226225622
3455338543
6304457621
2588659523
3936857422
6485729223
7109929522
2923560238
4793544116
2983046238
4914047211
4183923149
1983599991
2194822182
4383938744
6224024042
9118618968
6306381698
0966731379
1200490659
7372196831
2170499459
9969999609
0508930498
7323996327
9977181879
4499594551
9567791813
2657057360
6357769107
9055385400
2555928333
6285338646
3557636735
6027926202
9569776665
2639093922
8436633664
5844340835
3342324332
9909990054
6586335386
8545090384
0221949834
0820393632
1703423036
6399040685
0739009673
0030060106
1177117673
6666656662
8399991380
2127219600
8806790276
4449819686
8534761662
6099667670
2697108261
9627246510
5603271291
9647033002
1641322784
5624554425
2707002707
1693441244
9941394499
2623266222
8263010142
5833883185
6419789545
3867543988
6297547625
3461713417
6788266687
5219259021
8837088388
7893535535
2295893222
3164000616
9874674846
0593405533
2008772770
2864788336
3895821733
9508811575
6173857471
9868739863
2183499947
6750898981
3408798551
9086241985
5956299089
5813531558
0872878069
1401848081
0656446505
9993999943
7228118722
2002602360
6476565757
6441366444
4605999500
6401505031
2025568148
6640645945
7208501507
2006611328

The puzzle

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

7235377353
6668468746
3474514753
0030030885
7917712967
5421034346
5888518767
4667864753
3457732983
3032761345
0010371320
8844585854
1797119712
4646644196
8840332098
4714232012
0429175727
0445632724
5512812896
2776345796
9406292964
3252030232
1711671711
8579797939
0424994422
1709962627
2504222591
0712949414
9711676927
0219016346
2399233322
0213301133
5060400464
1054715149
0741111040
0313704377
2391788320
1729200895
5710399538
5060366458
3808988883
0036553500
2179072119
1083631503
7436174744
0476164995
2836769898
3833582823
2836132642
3136917473
7526959266
0394730937
9856669549
7175771171
7145154114
7594968403
0596763030
9894167725
7726703149
7855764889
8822448225
5171421754
0063097006
2425424625
1441510544
8979810624
9425841754
9395530746
5941540054
5499914025
0077878200
8333283523
1556555161
0024131040
3999112369
3974635560
3683113300
9408131740
4935781209
2840788120
4477490148
3673897734
4487337778
9483300892
3283160849
9215959915
4678148616
3487373743
3913431404
3783000033
7857584745
5454044059
4265494825
4408338440
2266792762
4860292442
4353094455
0104282729
4559188442
4614144145
5463434663
8461966841
2334646427
3657963993
4049119011
4653145871
5439022000
4449919524
5434682976
8463119341
4045910667
5175136983
8811723440
8021921055
8017923627
5871757578
7045204277
4121712117
8117888888
8111918901
2670272600
8585548585
4241442431
6693631656
9934136491
7781632431
7457241656
5409644600
0881448431
9955632696
8231648552
8231564931
6134695843
2134924281
6161983765
8234999849
4166616464
6154966665
2172416777
8021928101

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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