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:

3525335532
9292498524
2185910952
1816888861
6533333566
3403098532
3406385251
9747630552
7695618861
2239118521
7757577151
4646224246
5548584356
4343434748
7732316773
8253676256
9615374746
1762927751
4784616478
6687816356
8593158728
4189413798
7869931129
8198422311
8545927422
3548934999
3193696134
4119714797
7813181183
8965456896
3160707316
5317131111
6295199252
1600500668
7748555557
1345704304
5210144120
1348114601
7767541036
3775154075
8848334876
2892979282
1459524915
9451494586
5525555255
6507235555
2485699916
9724554815
0480299982
0601364912
1251508927
1905253501
8451056327
3430271547
6399056545
5157151517
1331183341
1500606025
8877058807
9575706957
5576070056
8022322830
7370725378
4485447558
7898773889
3104873870
8520122372
7084627580
9980942388
6402425088
5124211121
4337333433
1679067064
3755655576
6697997969
4797302504
5752295730
6659995279
1127900036
4625653134
6664601646
5959959651
3603370362
4496989984
9595975599
1694659662
4610571989
0652379396
4700273552
7237405699
4191491111
7493434343
0878507071
3884238838
1467994479
1174520743
1481511364
1167401494
3894962170
3668969372
6257010570
2106518076
6895601039
5573424679
2463694569
8680118660
2200227009
5055554530
3313101033
0259090579
0572977186
8311326773
1478596502
1331457444
3303307134
1401515550
0212302211
1338513333
3573976957
8031938983
1015177662
6453177551
2715353901
9576671762
7708059901
4115511254
0337063601
5529257952
9022909962
3663773762
4775180797
4747835788
9744813546
4777602120
1464565030
9763579606
1377883118
4066166116
2414844448
9349639939

The puzzle

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

9958954936
7571859444
1903578419
1326729137
7242853939
9794757994
9772429447
9949993129
3447774236
6829328936
5137690924
1624949353
0472386289
5990965353
4021699985
7233777223
0481849608
6880565089
1581381355
9949490984
6335560692
3769836435
0539515494
0869534784
6700566798
3307553767
3770330703
0330808883
6165464416
0839585895
7424983086
8565105575
8444177526
3795185209
8796580577
3790171313
7525959525
6444565542
8506998896
6924545249
7948009480
7428776847
2095422002
6281556658
7033773733
7438585050
7026568955
7298080950
2098038205
7021033241
5416480324
0169339056
5917132143
0489799432
0410106514
0409119098
2987999979
0196390993
5565363555
1910711701
6600010286
0049091400
6006070673
1129071023
1455754717
5221610616
3128771487
4397470270
6105171923
0847571273
3074733100
0442337051
8443528050
0988647360
4710853050
0022752270
5051002153
7977728379
0749747090
5333033901
0735008393
0705581620
0793672260
3005578406
0805942630
9193999999
0095609560
2875582875
3720101327
0804004144
5929923614
0889050616
0983176630
5013064448
3361270116
5010550148
6256226334
0669603696
4115464510
7733676533
8491118689
0251620052
1626996229
7077808877
4447334377
8246141867
8296533042
8476855393
8447327210
7421657572
4716747705
7988200403
6135255484
4006609744
4647635007
4794131457
5545459745
4747744787
0054025004
3887307803
2905990355
1898920709
1528910837
0902679266
1202160453
2597952959
1928662816
2808988989
7292440492
0053100005
9374459951
4717757466
0824859023
2618257414
2315257050
9914797414
5511959716
3737337063
0886089820
4555553451

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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