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:
2225171307
4894620565
9853113465
0299186605
6829592996
2264122142
1053033550
0895557099
9294699999
7657568575
7515273907
3452966479
7655900845
3447573255
7594597594
8617282661
7655996799
9555775755
0679645883
0842950915
0802078300
1649924781
7642976029
9608098890
1830663113
0989888080
1575955557
4123496351
5827887981
3588496387
7534692331
9551992851
3696363956
6888886381
1938390386
2229728937
1718200546
1248390206
2842744448
4238854578
6944996448
4622420426
2072657206
7931791777
5555444540
7767750900
7295753916
1238186566
9398853106
2162556821
0610272906
6960690546
1155156110
8229283982
0938331647
6259774630
6198124681
6753034984
7787774897
4442224214
6695959681
6046770640
8344234932
5031800204
5937922621
3331750322
8344540823
2336556353
7811788181
3337939337
5944884929
8337272382
1475105199
3351402300
9455418425
7873726781
3153135154
9875187751
1921771711
7411881888
8365483556
6412262146
7222727222
9205900522
9610710061
9402722083
9229924637
9200549272
6432532061
7225712537
3778977777
1799616191
8994084098
9811799118
9778740437
3709085671
8799987854
9824081746
1798606841
1850253769
0182374766
1853284585
6151189333
7123731323
3852353133
6851888888
1116161116
0150251000
5641716494
7490202277
7704177074
3887573888
3467761367
8447211987
5888787135
5680310239
3807583523
0434718649
1199854546
0887756949
2905416043
3603356639
1330316053
6924252946
4488558544
1122211592
The puzzle
Given the above hint, what famous landmark do the numbers below refer to?
7680262202
5158714158
1824514225
0624550652
7684729331
5854782364
0134540879
0088200524
5388448507
2004000404
1061311013
5530555059
8752378372
5061346571
2020231452
6750554101
2700528514
8031001090
7751010767
5875675686
8567288576
1993393319
5953321311
7893680685
8496680590
1961468538
7751607374
0018818800
9484226894
3420804833
6536555663
4786256893
4458968100
7316248104
1237715830
7725604693
4330269298
5578188541
2062965091
4754259515
1113154291
4405880475
5891998518
0500449055
3565365563
9909163885
2699106822
9589302842
2619327955
2039553379
2699199619
4917393494
6308063030
9887338798
6348236246
5345553547
0989696908
4005510475
8313836906
7685096541
7645336545
1409836446
3955656547
0659778345
0019490950
6642805560
0058567914
6689777888
2945445424
9052595500
0358803800
0068220209
4981686141
1131411413
0035250300
0713372007
0461367217
8963223970
1031688713
0733316011
0981856244
2793888279
1699699666
6024120110
0368336332
2629585655
6394580958
6074518137
6725566371
0068304569
3315207776
4671117301
5022983374
2294694776
0741194701
3370505372
8258113958
0700707006
5372387352
1405140011
4668846288
2429529451
5311515316
6439410481
2809576286
7068615408
5747325358
2013919081
0606555149
5884570607
0886535761
0866920886
5696959966
1686556856
0443009404
8804684488
0964444040
1637216551
1419910386
8670059540
0637349897
1239393312
8677677877
0747547057
5637252337
1410919464
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.
Comments
Big Ben
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.
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.
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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