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:

2255197144
8080140066
8007110032
2087272002
8070724472
8203737227
3375173711
8039193810
2657442497
3080588505
1454390139
1811729598
0282970583
0388192498
8642630190
3302333830
4473474530
8028920298
4848342483
9991999193
4364452820
8186163075
8004732835
2156709315
7446833635
3878732378
3909553095
2228032820
5869559815
6063007630
8388223088
2222239282
3333833783
9939590589
9839558395
1901258088
9750994585
0234623389
7843793785
6491639289
6510911068
0028899068
9720735113
6518711884
4810981417
0793799937
6818919988
8020330128
4508888004
8025882285
9566199616
5791597195
6083868830
5555555758
6688776688
7958278180
3732376638
1519655758
2161398690
6341099737
0162125971
0026956081
6105501928
6366979358
0565105083
0105777007
3555955993
6307807567
4366566466
6042146010
2202250770
9975781591
6032790139
9993730114
9032789133
6042996920
3995759939
2278484822
9933233332
9672778727
4645866884
4308100044
2774442177
3391119993
6806776766
4608725075
4638437033
4796896891
6308109487
3606174626
3332033220
8100000801
1045771410
1072271712
2805779588
1302747946
1004222758
1330099377
2832075410
8072263014
5235258323
9696094960
9151151919
8863838887
6861118681
0471054611
3232998960
1012938423
1051851663
0453354917
5698413249
2553109642
1221959842
7494312185
4800613882
5444554834
1505507285
1132813812
9664969645
7315753179
7541870783
1571202837
7551803274
0551252651
7381163481
0557175115
0571855150
4380443410
4381013830
7549247594
2845711442
3498395074
4758791074
1199216442
6717616040
6666116652
6905576095
4646431644
0314013470
3515594453

The puzzle

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

5174275099
9693243804
9161205232
9568169902
9996100313
6994114694
1171271211
5566155115
1198111958
9671211211
6797418840
1642298886
0508743742
2274713486
8815493742
9409993046
1181441784
4404013040
5828212852
7386908769
8523513829
7563341344
3956073085
3929473390
3326549978
3736373379
3563433633
3229599253
7326027627
4955599455
4219917973
5252193173
1874717072
5506677963
7908677663
6979999079
7222272572
3377337173
7977117977
2625215662
7889007641
2944008740
0949097677
5832458191
5337677993
1273772143
9796898796
1999901991
7457587570
6967767697
1663631636
3964364913
9761761387
4488404485
1215331125
5610034485
5408331987
4475434915
4275601146
3848531336
8769135457
7623646431
1620796100
1407776245
2729165260
7727177717
5009055500
2627762737
1480666401
8643843368
7112780894
7049070693
7822937729
6449613478
7463740146
2412919424
6169699666
7759774597
7823373782
5149044541
9403910238
9033706986
4402588734
6300788343
4319928024
0002999029
4416741664
9330333533
5383035308
5449554544
1800880572
7394452078
4166296080
1699150770
7456090838
8552773582
7787282770
8656151876
8880080038
1387991878
8603863686
6996995936
1233889321
6622223286
8686998962
9203693986
5643588236
3607293986
0504555636
9699399666
3518358833
7484848872
9951559194
2622226562
7191751794
1392259594
2913856534
5185052864
3925328574
7739048864
3822393718
6672576379
2564876547
5210510767
1486697367
8989996328
4534573245
6654996567
7717117715
2579112579
0651264374
0671368439
0646511111
0689363287
5649343691
5644354634
4149299121
0699509668
0281201102
0676567066

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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