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:

2026376174
8079408948
0898276838
5034770182
4829298102
5664996984
9099700979
8885878158
0008090804
3111431142
5949095302
9956669185
0525850829
0402250482
0013932910
7373439415
0310999422
3147263825
7528159982
5080660482
6517479905
2036164995
6881069033
8265578500
7753278485
5114552431
0830003800
4339094053
0562269295
9877978985
2552452404
7377737738
7330067303
7822328037
5530175017
3727875337
5674652033
5955932137
0702378034
6622037704
6139176599
5892660219
1724570255
2510852299
2786614269
8111152919
2141215294
7260670269
4659664695
5596776595
7666766475
3123333292
3969386839
3362320368
4496959446
1624459346
8891350495
0265726445
2395954235
3892830235
4549645945
0790490104
2487024884
3820202838
8004998084
3509963045
2020030085
2829431839
4490467759
5094427068
3685117369
0419558920
4775561768
8185528780
3795569449
0095191911
7075557755
4159094911
3689666862
8712557277
0163256607
8710553525
8543531541
6386938949
2502251921
1555151125
3639636906
5333133141
7626774628
5897578549
6792002904
6004800088
4316993416
5490790040
6674574577
5704906797
4074526030
6495045472
6074865857
4790979861
8810228088
0118023081
1379177913
8443884030
3781173183
5009273011
1387623088
4578878081
9515321018
6941573088
0699669906
1041314364
0635000035
7285922882
5970379390
1681328390
1989963519
0649032282
1070304798
0080458678
4449949996
6245642562
2237772732
1338308433
3339393773
3021099436
2623542932
3718690566
4464293796
8446048432
4529547673
4387585629
8017425249
6021500863
6511927339
6508956991
9329593525
7417411141
1771271111
4087998440

The puzzle

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

6851486040
7401515940
0456471071
0422187280
6756142510
7801178111
7753375773
6417516112
0326363633
6457475554
7171077780
5531731315
1653751165
7395858773
0697377703
0331740565
7693990628
7391780121
7691769497
0195022375
5516111655
6101806121
6543666664
5001850105
6045750004
6506189449
5503185284
6041859060
5045193801
3003649597
0813681606
1151060105
4749997349
3799939773
9999117998
4678299709
2862110108
7228960908
5640469605
7175569098
2212821842
6838383639
6666668692
8888788187
5336513534
2099418699
5972623597
4721223182
8338661332
6334888639
3846686662
7461347176
1430001030
1178676116
7671373676
1840381190
7471269354
3148635444
7131376290
3430632201
5498444412
1648582462
7668509145
7698453090
7698383693
5692592955
7944397474
8688588868
9438448444
1485555410
7568775738
3702663220
9924999992
5994119941
3572757537
3522788690
5578766522
5564111327
9502766778
8994142503
4866884648
3851313318
8950445954
2594655922
6237333713
4836323758
8967307179
3550760132
2554833771
8296862786
8295323839
2364524343
2620556026
6857687055
1294599411
6694588209
2225502329
2360678972
2364550111
6899355131
9870490338
0313173352
6446973788
5935473152
8712473186
4572998745
8855775182
8333373328
7589797458
3973773936
5388498354
4050500558
3248882436
1666156107
5558959855
4829690804
0011208854
5948992557
7441052538
8842560356
3169139661
9317536797
1346863883
1695516519
8770990979
3760583533
4390590446
9360115707
9749547971
8775543648
8230328288
5340775535
1209211902
7316235626
8288118128
1240129483
5340301933
8200760903
8346337036
5416214591

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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