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:
0117696170
4097560681
1115513378
1047162936
8385153333
8817444141
4243544245
1115411151
0097590558
2734733274
6160111110
3630837683
7658333385
3638748244
2154376192
3650346076
4176834438
3760115370
9082124287
8354951508
4631354540
4020459257
1974714497
2252221206
4775554756
8855939528
0040000140
1277822271
2594145454
3503800303
4161111611
3594128832
3594836164
4514181554
3271018705
3561098284
2121424107
6252256252
2322212793
5325131573
9737636723
7098952152
2817331133
4005714193
0069826177
9906667276
4709889119
3999700873
9079546034
4563533357
4794574479
9906660006
9034737034
9979898998
9990709796
3037637069
8558856089
3326115365
0557817065
6409446769
3087209156
5533555155
6923709356
0409985124
2305987791
8112188491
2572819781
1288118121
8484565484
2128686123
9929931794
1989189011
1174774141
6661261628
5686452846
0469998160
1492894164
9901471148
8957854061
2011338048
6881452161
1245325134
3393339380
5889181594
4646554624
3849835323
7255884694
7074154194
3927554383
2411426384
9786166621
3110720623
1626426895
5395616890
2521515525
1621626691
6773667391
1400020810
5544666645
3988090833
4715175411
5071515005
6990799700
5910529126
6010021828
3778447097
3711012518
6981138086
2652341901
2662101043
7332149548
2752506407
2582333225
4775171477
1632333366
7656333662
2369592653
1207624305
1218808394
8217910428
8007904782
1064916471
1514914491
8207080027
4211621112
1038663630
The puzzle
Given the above hint, what famous landmark do the numbers below refer to?
6386536666
1525655554
8053885303
3901339319
1066566246
1063671639
8305947122
6303913452
8859418490
7292803557
2158075283
4489994532
1976475543
7555734557
8210404712
7643773647
5553355533
3313191583
8952997992
8196917947
7634112999
7177499042
4990970945
1877717899
3901319930
7227797022
6869612967
2465719738
2439765962
2199779522
2170766523
2435737555
2169726677
2474842427
5090058900
6895796798
1919172891
6516660521
0188538506
9889778879
8507838079
2935372899
8941878801
4844300501
9418278897
6132314281
0583904780
0543011281
5428091211
8999199281
4141511054
6374431487
0701714710
4904009441
0332203932
2252355230
3031112302
4489774449
6041651439
6438174402
2651203035
8895051262
1240604902
2832133171
4952624592
8463262432
1359111313
8948184270
9833615266
7933808508
2863272668
2932191544
1815916498
8748373934
3134577999
3447273154
1177373718
6444506454
6313319034
7715776156
9999919999
5418758787
7459050504
0238783737
0167333021
0418346494
7787194727
8252748418
5259333226
0168754652
6861866881
3094404044
5585258525
1412335114
1790346403
3711243107
5464420338
7582494312
6563280478
1661340823
0657493102
1356431562
6767369637
3666333663
0677476477
1581318515
6353777335
1767767774
2222222920
6200064700
3937743799
1111371316
4838473769
4987962960
8551322709
7079270756
2231524320
3105492116
2177303116
1074993193
8489893189
7733993713
9366393386
6011505186
2221202192
9174141119
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.
Comments
Big Ben
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.
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.
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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