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:

4884484124
0925992959
3144415344
3550051330
0396996603
9475415949
3699915603
6715684324
6684482133
0106012040
5298525402
2211724055
2292886932
4232757715
6298764459
2578775788
4591595959
2271212922
6212226221
6031861063
4222019210
7994524795
6252615263
8737773978
9593353699
1999215799
7784113993
6408075613
1804025999
8667195660
7475957973
9959908995
3131141317
7871714798
6103176013
6801677378
2831744713
6526041778
4515887375
6724208793
1595280952
6782233403
1385662112
6781270819
9132966589
6392193636
9735993535
9581221552
1168011188
8731232537
1401241022
8212116282
0266706726
9244229249
6052956600
0252767408
1292133454
9262228779
6214956053
8261184208
5636161625
9679867809
3553446531
1713737301
9779990987
3208690581
6062296501
3008862305
6542091501
6785237309
9015750991
2095000292
2772676967
7617676111
0674570407
0015586784
2972674056
0095722429
9777061421
7617660295
5552355321
4410340423
3838286238
4474507445
1147114766
5433215245
7697947425
9788280265
6702907753
1124117246
6161631686
1735713757
5533335557
9009090190
6171136146
0349896550
7130233156
3628196151
2832216187
9504013587
7930997526
3992647218
7976455778
3586912296
7832945297
7860578846
7789978777
3976099676
2222442222
7531676173
3317616569
5064241506
5317797487
3367259788
6517540057
3917597771
3517666551
4014220242
6327077736
5163566568
3497141997
5454646455
0879589583
2362323323
3350131133
2454369963
3397341022
2354311845
3460153459
3458196423
1718615867
3053060353
4449393543
8073773063
5222552317
8206212343
6502575367
2956962857
9201315307
8106660043

The puzzle

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

6096609845
5950874712
6276028098
6207474612
7374274712
7877778718
4885744875
2322627682
7669276092
7273703742
7166737169
5995005098
0730076097
9843393834
2255552485
4638632867
0569402085
6614975884
1858003095
6725692534
1263812079
3379714780
4961060480
0367382680
7026211540
5537570553
0999092030
8744461844
0678787680
7414714779
5646664625
4004040063
2222242424
6462726375
5538358833
1777054374
9573858876
8425140425
6531758335
1659762863
0847499406
7817338791
7057229403
4813446291
8295838721
9941939491
2228222826
6662226733
4148848786
2900129201
9847999945
1297176601
0742864383
3247711164
0042145526
9497979499
1067160016
6217866717
3842028282
0062765027
5577717951
6065596568
6266626682
7779889797
3664354736
5817817781
4583756942
8688689798
1108484636
2846896661
3883976516
6660314518
0732818585
7123671487
3906618417
1451571545
2872778287
5483348835
4414474441
1012116016
7623080236
3412437253
5723540409
5593983244
4256433243
7434330746
6233110233
3333983239
0403444003
8487887464
5880550895
0000040082
9129339133
2976225769
1414514551
6447810081
6871814732
7515152755
9787139583
4964324533
4858905700
8835965690
8848598812
4348521440
4835545643
4031510034
4837993947
3845248355
8588958954
5318238525
6868869398
9116767331
2776226789
9945745739
4419951994
9356251739
8629555395
3858465799
1589121398
6441046731
1524225222
9352599553
2327922947
9602196290
5201352010
1257949487
2628339108
5302948233
9554270782
9502317784
0856156135
2963423949
4585855555
8374978334
8884118888
8576969206
2544439749
8584113690
8884969640
8984142880

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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