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:

6669624978
5023922488
4620207571
3020101112
5190494571
1272197312
7474724971
7998212987
4222002412
8468881568
0467907260
7662966760
7778874540
0792835300
0202563863
5438934455
2762867676
7602929910
0267507605
3598955988
2924142219
6975549587
2323237322
8278802787
0112110201
6172437227
8476437989
8209142729
6201842589
9567549317
0977709172
8500528501
5199991959
0410159014
5084358134
2053299902
9987509031
2599991154
6046928034
0541555559
4969339396
5576356757
8279339429
2629442962
6837736887
2526702603
4937314148
5227331443
5224759161
4279465900
0610246310
5690948043
8910332420
5930363886
4560363976
0930590304
4980289022
4590000044
5669359565
8612322283
9584788990
3510471390
4856888330
0070978650
5319071931
9094771940
9931933491
7822373204
8538586350
9398328339
1115181151
9992928897
6673566775
9798966897
9957157919
2901256877
4574981991
2207426197
1070152797
4735557711
0731150006
6130807999
4357273047
2400556543
0818457937
9996976994
7777773037
4700707545
5887887803
5550050349
0054805054
7921695991
1164464611
8276987682
4249554524
7264963278
0169883741
0966609499
1071964943
3956922114
3238238238
4173314478
8152717218
3433133334
1996199161
1938768137
3933132203
1153173990
1236396309
1466119591
9937992937
5733008235
3223534252
2822558232
4017174013
7677632232
9402792232
2701954263
6841408237
6205038012
3484448384
2707751207
0079770099
1810202111
0500590050
3985291091
1284750094
0385101303
0993952009
3836690390
2685886545
2090990900
5172111515
9373337339
9372579735
9372963725
9172517755
2673316350
9670013590
2372868741

The puzzle

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

8272008712
6626268267
4465544546
8167768757
2337537265
7809638247
3358008255
2092758766
0819708762
0035164262
9777770975
2323337212
4888788784
9933935039
2700990228
4300477032
2006180019
3718597022
0652685222
4263931724
2701257900
7054326768
6641265908
7904266367
7044302082
9901591999
2954245124
6438136316
3031300101
7744242742
4101836335
9755498519
6425495939
8581641920
2492499625
5363336526
2292949221
8861568615
9991938919
3314391330
4048570886
1855398600
8001098288
4900090780
8152450206
8777778748
8181118891
8883770838
7677997800
8662658286
0488088080
1870578450
6973996367
0068306000
4820998829
0420320593
1878588167
0268386460
0468948199
0963368025
4744878741
9294292944
3800383030
4429646954
1411114434
1148896731
0338248950
8259516744
2656316551
8202684754
0524295420
1010770167
4123251423
7157770935
4669990654
1048690963
9387470450
3073172657
2368695450
5415175125
8191090997
7824856897
7411388535
5497139963
7197185528
5478118415
7828088802
8191418141
9434394923
7927887772
0758017870
0712214590
8183117501
8727510172
5998814861
7717114872
5959519150
4100540501
1641110761
3373717731
9733332977
7103117308
6889440698
8822999280
7419797384
7908697677
7918797298
7379192384
1959137690
7202897968
0352098381
4055032444
1074978847
4375901353
6532722639
4039935944
0574070477
6054745074
7355223255
0302100002
1924313492
4761814846
6482826688
9954149594
7414313634
4464126534
9914828618
4914176532
1914264038
6454802988
7006400140
5008105008
9025450590
6596496464
9398338399
6396123991
9026410491
9006434849
5395318550
9998449496

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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