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:

9973880294
2387694256
1027410005
8067089285
5089419054
2274774295
0550000255
0776118076
4984989284
0600890084
1333933917
2633132812
2932992483
3373113278
3336331336
0942231982
3669011883
0584712916
8359191283
0460831173
8264558886
6004563848
6934444934
3960816460
6250381981
3234532236
2064828264
6950999999
6254366363
8952459549
4036944063
8670588678
2971692756
3139838381
5746754455
4139760760
8974684955
4776535666
8776739795
2671819290
6088168000
9072599279
9990499994
4196116716
5876998657
9086147043
9092419905
6096565293
9090140383
4676910194
9344849938
1181816168
2333686323
9959993591
2707350736
2457690328
0395480923
3808506363
1359146738
3662756131
4077505550
3846838884
3002000200
3776430743
4610554050
4877508637
4820860629
4606447921
4676453101
4617869999
7968583969
8572107669
0240501371
5795187964
9353655968
7854557908
0900905974
3888883351
6525757262
9969585669
0113257748
3918604593
3577732880
0704746580
8503124607
0907777979
6743267778
8517658661
3154645143
1418188184
6058032165
9001953285
0803096911
0638702212
6838528589
3533932335
6651066006
0009900099
6828668668
9877578977
8052567383
0335050423
1076742191
7489058796
6555097426
6688730687
1809868790
2241192421
1311757143
5229659326
7212012029
7899096196
7304057916
7601226147
0355490950
9161916990
9922280029
2691191916
6626727246
9955552159
1673642352
9215977524
1047940423
9897609693
8871982358
3880930903
5275676565
1047070477
8603430030
9511891117
0442242768
9959979549
6686686066
5594995459
2955999552
1001295552
3061599069
9993486444
7010989068
3781649768

The puzzle

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

5957698476
1059416427
3329051525
7350016005
1951302149
1329393189
3050405540
1559851958
5341656433
3997097399
2430100082
4252940223
0354120322
8453188898
7432104765
8235777858
3452125214
7334939313
2483333322
4450344053
6380931629
0026909244
8770633249
9890432230
0370010234
2941910249
2499979942
4422292234
1000601629
3123433841
8919783987
4020462404
6838688366
4626442656
2292992909
2959492956
4151063966
8248582966
8065942306
8658282426
5002050062
2195912911
0644767064
2261612663
8859957918
3490657013
4256767912
0645952011
1378652564
1601412663
0602642014
2344698629
1834191115
5707548428
3711657441
9894998498
5105441045
2022250424
1221902119
1119747171
7809393676
7806253098
6803087544
7579039663
7346306096
3249333429
7508407644
7083387333
7309272999
7876087878
9767952615
5059872694
8794152494
7658147416
6272857494
1961710716
6861661484
2626442665
9339937999
5195159164
5544404455
0112392013
5225722475
3640060454
7723333732
3071834074
3117494437
6967292455
9102464412
6099132434
9221249706
2825566047
0332703747
0435463700
5551291746
0061596506
7645060547
3477447703
5707001057
3773363770
8471963284
9496854283
4660668234
2773964283
3923850280
2027570250
4864464984
4345008543
9240393284
3358058603
7033737032
7859665696
5447775477
5697355663
2812771181
2853349531
5617349903
5038729098
5612716653
7613655360
9629746557
1629706541
9223265201
1922935507
3258923121
9258775889
1922812102
1923793719
3699939399
5677655766
4620016482
2931673573
7744976229
7647196988
7050415502
6959596529
6262616002
5797835978
9585883589
9222272213

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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