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:

8058326597
6202515899
5356722091
8636085891
3629617410
1209112891
0777787097
5994965494
2211226411
8080578580
2359885490
8159369487
9453951991
4450731091
2153329402
9109779179
9750270225
4159994099
2403744340
8390339983
5373948089
1172526181
3373374301
3312958229
9253983366
1259955959
8372323833
9870331303
5283582855
3170272170
3613433413
7651331351
3891498394
2777977672
4183771487
2651365212
7851132529
4883437468
2781347305
3681316342
5631151301
6161313613
4596619564
3377327239
5330330543
2783831644
0155793641
1999017303
5419550314
5837357344
6685884982
6248601953
2437247253
8600151943
5998056681
5514556943
2222327632
7007007059
4414441942
8414184481
7144982266
3005982772
7930862346
6200862273
4186452763
9825959283
8381383376
2522252772
4464664469
7677664716
2475939203
3854587819
1976979595
7952936086
1436749173
7973937339
3932432389
1956856858
2474552445
6860780008
6086554748
5219452457
8060363618
0032805447
3383853571
7275552457
5433343543
4711361473
7518755741
1411104418
5331591739
9769498847
8449488843
2656038959
5835838882
7747778847
7337338927
1818791789
5933794773
3182281232
8664566954
1322421321
4042999992
7670577777
0883138138
0672984606
7022116032
7389565146
1662106463
1072500599
0589426488
9598620415
3878876608
7612770435
0773870488
6363996634
2242222680
7007770460
8187887318
3845838485
0304707253
7701696041
9730138227
2243938127
4794238240
8839998337
3793039043
5515516251
0202202021
8303030180
6881959572
1272959260
0312903673
6572965706
0670986291
8610911680
0384938848
1272225227
2572827787
6141214242

The puzzle

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

1012132081
7142663205
4102975785
4100999194
7702943791
7102171207
4802822268
4792992999
1549111591
7010900097
7940997540
3441121134
9952299295
7476457924
5715117594
9636059594
7520817594
5331017595
8436217525
0472307594
3793898737
1450619156
0941664416
2887788778
2248778427
0783707879
0848660866
2250627180
3953662689
3798009393
1565659166
0322522570
5555070558
7817116078
8878777887
4420659877
1001212860
1973016186
3570070476
7802977578
7225526745
2754540257
5697336759
7151570651
0333337663
9741637257
8179337756
2181830655
2993040753
3915740761
2007427274
6603566636
8012009210
1602991091
8527358523
6003509238
2507519515
8527544220
8603124037
1507450555
8558555588
4225255204
8380288203
1069611160
5555558502
9220655560
7668158108
4087551204
3455959204
6681718204
1693235916
0168151283
6864558187
7400057212
5494851187
5366735687
1115161983
2338555283
1115551182
6886888816
2591166826
9300238802
2363264036
1634535028
9593453022
3066336002
5252528825
6205666028
5550655506
3334343837
1222219216
1177301273
2894297842
0060660604
2275555420
5424657412
9532597824
4103657403
1210092876
1487210670
3473534947
4938243322
6484588864
2841727482
5232132222
6282503049
4438182411
5438565318
5343786021
4983747719
9392539214
4573239389
8354319219
0255332389
7517639289
1033332501
5639996355
2824479284
0109040019
7818189281
2762722276
6183833688
6268818642
7404171048
3212332134
9955432276
0011722628
5474632144
5338173144
9872538638
5512414551
4241844154
4096594090
3069560536
6359555665
4219501176
6041501380
7012583540
6212545063
4011854603

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.

Post a comment