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:
1096874494
0478667244
2309964234
3223050344
5430554930
2797376293
3330330344
5826267254
3829389352
5509887850
7688877887
2970779907
9966779797
3609723668
7627726897
2009821277
9571864125
5626884204
0814631969
7664832706
8269383727
7516433156
3631133109
8311881737
5832232853
7662231726
8449445948
2239539225
5090106910
4485885864
0665336035
9770836515
2944306215
1749582534
2217029534
5218186980
5390998569
4929821421
7227984641
7325927705
4020770000
5943094957
0340000000
7297877778
5945959559
3773437734
5493558634
2500452049
3070332807
8516237639
9721157834
1539938898
6453757894
7444552844
7991744268
7553740850
4543774141
6593705690
6981776199
7303433337
4491714447
9048694066
7593855784
2641661666
1394554949
8155255285
1771311373
1144381295
8191365212
1141383610
1751611642
8094246309
5907500103
8437694304
8037300023
1832124196
1892558911
6447116661
8904000840
5034300460
8037583070
0913413040
9993953919
4444272449
5575596975
7393476919
8580473449
5205553099
5311394949
8467306042
2988671089
2027909041
2227654515
6387926539
6017573167
9928799979
2067926979
9382999228
5217675211
0330003256
9094910994
0744010742
7210331107
2794033952
1353211142
2181063746
7873660352
6700312747
1116161813
8517656783
0202070220
4449996914
2409051080
5399096713
4830096825
7182196214
9152091983
4785224555
3878138380
7920927207
6465556554
3878927802
7860259046
5475298229
6980113161
3987105360
The puzzle
Given the above hint, what famous landmark do the numbers below refer to?
4181075424
4188307429
4113188188
4113187788
8113113831
4183331811
4588787584
0181087100
7078070770
5491693464
0039330309
4977147744
1396939996
4375348042
1979562162
0399190484
1295582077
4991924258
1648305317
7166703608
4076395418
6606632390
9999595990
3723337327
5546543516
6602002607
7898884498
9395889753
3089277452
9386891665
8385549032
8882118812
3013220230
9946119989
3382585333
9395888959
1977818977
6666668665
1308330851
7666976896
5782830867
6915080777
4891410966
8075766631
8079518656
5239183613
5651181693
0659657316
5805186350
0402111821
0234550304
5659226259
3275623737
1851211211
1833733318
5001757905
9624669646
5999159959
9628140663
1628732851
9897796521
5023740279
1921670690
0445154441
3304543444
6075800807
4712333321
4744142661
9007051066
0347183858
3407083320
6707112882
2393033233
7386063870
3386883036
1153751555
7583787606
2582082448
2386805449
5186016361
3192782488
6911191621
6524496425
2227711272
0011591550
8092811597
2945996291
0404411522
7269191420
9615411325
5654079180
8455881484
3465884053
6565524546
3151531331
2564525464
3605030360
6407866462
8645464856
6789460048
0479574236
6797491231
6486585664
3799533393
3417010731
0889988008
6646066046
9776477798
7521225527
2147617160
7048088880
9945393555
7041303130
2141081520
2141081642
2348014310
7141092794
7983181891
2291772771
4959941949
7332535727
5852704583
7132564342
7233559820
2952146856
5989605724
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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