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:

7794941828
3895279826
6046610867
7639973866
3950813826
6876777866
2088843828
0966639606
7118871826
8888710778
6941631071
2700971218
6574041967
7866071071
1269679114
8319139918
6147171694
2077772077
7442741277
1112441111
1616311636
6607060874
3603337360
3889378341
7710771601
1182617631
7998963641
2049278636
9290771304
7615371300
3943436824
4455113154
7974794173
8384004843
3553513365
9921033164
6316094363
3660613853
3736336163
8519333945
6839882683
1169316631
1032103101
4930443449
4706177766
1839125478
6072861661
1809476525
4732156155
6969100157
3069776962
4253677947
2421077587
9586247983
8402816576
9555515987
7797876879
8471317343
4844844489
6756777566
6141232375
5238531205
7578042772
7179083002
7541706800
3971919997
5231753327
6688068086
7149844768
8579285885
7656767587
8341010538
3623136126
2002920392
8778778614
4707630186
3905257187
8598426638
9355167634
3714167582
9139399533
2798279878
9477577574
7446767746
3184998984
2477503866
3498529169
2149305364
9449516907
3709220033
7064640432
4987029514
0297297942
9951640427
1625966215
4264999694
7981281938
0697677906
9027097000
1925442529
5740999567
0764337643
2435342425
4950344340
6162336226
2760363079
2760350736
5762936828
6160371819
1740311016
9339303039
4334663343
5071050810
6486469486
3329932329
7808459813
7947569319
7305160420
7577633088
6357753819
9215895888
9213705907
5267923339
4517545740
2263529544
9217599995
3786777976
1683913819
4513845151
2265622252
2849175300
6884153906
3386645889
6049975827
6483380338
2349999349
6883181388
7009606690
4352333332
3414113136

The puzzle

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

4428919634
4426911407
8982500404
0086527683
8546543061
9046994994
0552405584
8328525885
4487557885
1426969426
9345232922
6330800835
7245127512
8335938388
8914918184
9334925731
1335152162
6245849623
7240844463
8234209062
9281571612
7888700218
0690618448
7200718421
7796478738
2272770722
1488408441
0826228336
8744778418
1251111257
6517066000
0160440100
4819519994
5350100810
8667557875
5617164960
4417102509
8669553443
6859505385
4517474213
9414250383
2170979211
9377211301
9307708159
3175546155
9115515151
5370777735
3122212243
2577992579
1407001077
6804733985
6705922758
7796064226
1826461663
3826902964
3806938003
7365750737
6782027776
6825455625
1764364736
7051072170
3153242128
4330248219
0056134590
4158078290
0577778530
9105152519
4924444279
9997972799
2322032120
1126112615
7833836878
9231828953
3339469934
5986798756
5287839973
0710818116
9984318954
0088736675
6329768756
3621712615
4191355665
1253615969
9421265617
9930856649
4516317635
3333963919
3525525345
1616516665
5977759237
5716940731
5675175192
7071240483
0535055684
9469870084
6647770654
4409245092
8870150781
9921989113
2252002452
6869350672
3319845430
3321352903
3638913699
3618964737
3668336666
3161610113
2039882898
6316636636
8029998990
0592609290
7556155555
0693930999
8265888624
3707535005
3265541412
7562943224
7296973055
0552532225
0465576328
4325364547
8197337267
8067176458
2065367410
4197163026
9395399996
8167186816
0137317013
3025626665
4522822228
7244421767
5447496852
4992708030
0974728220
3477898837
8818798870
4204445027
7330023730
1011701257
2555628562

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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