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:

9411549153
0040045804
0938409840
1889414898
6777777066
2225077140
9169175154
3315907896
2134719048
4705585898
6112436154
3550770535
2379696723
2020787205
5511576751
0612477755
6582236703
2714576154
8054977804
1150476521
8888977988
5565661355
6902903697
1121231722
9212917902
4565673702
6629207398
7272311952
1898202992
3733317722
0122910112
8495998985
3440949933
7286447366
9491319143
3492900063
0246487787
9045966539
9481959173
7145905459
1600785108
1836932226
1216559961
1186585733
1300905919
7100577007
1625766259
7881981199
1350550555
9236666929
0155313605
1095993372
8195043499
5024004647
9025926549
8435355543
9824020290
5055950555
3890709338
0185555385
3148915615
5494877941
5506697699
3421674293
4931814910
9993393913
5071575201
0422474290
9415997945
1617117691
5329047769
0313084112
5439011900
0426070951
1759187650
8423338232
5359039995
5711111515
1309933993
0026000609
8244852481
6906561850
4470044407
2472527554
2111111241
5039011407
7030151407
8095882401
2372824447
5063717507
5629555962
7777770024
2660060566
1225225210
9004994070
2304690912
8806360064
2493094077
0159170974
0347275060
9198998901
5716556167
5232632665
3455767554
5770795707
4854898155
1635564561
9402156167
3184595755
8652038707
7428701649
7438488697
9434101158
8578162297
2504968920
9534115516
7334973779
6572766757
2123333123
8408888880
1976162719
9919999196
7337070357
3592429450
7416116747
1765072759
5773392159
3251170191
0672319457
6631090746
8012020927
0918710141
0798037176
6592001191
9412724233
0090799009
6716016100
8992789878
4442022400
9808787819

The puzzle

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

7612247476
5372317906
8403910577
0299580547
4432016406
5117116977
3334540453
0064006046
0049220409
7717617576
2493843286
3836833868
8611806188
8984498434
4473774273
4040473286
2678408138
4924774166
8661096834
5128671234
9961838506
9734255572
1734280484
9521288099
7534524338
7531133315
5981215552
9764147711
1874588483
9742898447
2090002049
1183513835
2321222433
8885883588
6644113648
8081213645
9705842835
5477502538
2079913489
1539323549
9725797235
4444874814
6701606195
6226646642
9099979890
0598696245
6825744875
9249794842
9115294894
9316876144
2737878732
4815140015
1525212528
2929224219
3363396933
4591816739
7479941518
8583248535
2925224022
5577420938
2229565271
5805799092
6479655282
2544759701
6453459002
7207759702
6992642096
3099229072
6665665266
1211165281
1685651926
0695073395
4645653263
2576723366
7782411627
5525959925
1136101316
2229923393
6116667617
8112317263
5905187717
5975984708
4975133167
6992130376
6500967086
2535151531
6992122191
7970079977
6305958369
5773873777
2222056202
6660636604
9567858790
8555000185
5775357735
1013056705
0323250204
6685857705
3016056703
3973150100
3651977870
3687767745
3883956994
0908864954
3683782084
0958998995
3857888885
3703130713
3989739887
0635103164
1638218428
9876296896
7198299227
0628008268
3240999229
0276943647
7830292841
9638281334
4638977812
0270098089
9690507003
3393008506
9395582960
9393317892
9163300098
0393553559
9260090206
3185058801
4303530353
9061319709
8841472812
4926004412
1053375818
4224704465
8244474832
5552575238
9881089401
0010202010
7443784472
7577177815

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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