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:
1348413048
7990081190
8112181326
4077770914
5697479012
1813670124
4816473310
4098613128
0203380097
1121102191
4922444729
5555555937
5542975294
7210252291
4749555226
7698277124
7209244797
8704245239
0400223640
2662774268
3133837138
2912172851
3921077240
0042287158
9826712268
7972572168
9779177841
9936555959
5972822575
6089369980
4689559895
4032546439
8989559230
5989233556
8689350487
8689699069
2345555524
1547444441
0863666738
0411110411
0511180765
4567502131
2247436825
2547159539
2441558159
1507168170
7432383114
1439354677
6045010173
8508350638
1001113110
3973390307
7313767773
7841788174
8837357838
6337773256
0225000452
3137371371
2453233850
9375877898
6893671331
0019577480
2661577796
3310441150
3296946886
3957842882
8028091232
7831777838
8828242882
8184644186
6869696866
1920011290
3918496248
0063451322
1023463610
0055505908
3068556546
1225122212
0959490959
7018518018
3233432322
5237797773
9919397134
0067397187
4538092177
4944197144
8747848187
2092229170
0797792773
9917991037
4486048646
0582888588
7215616752
7113171193
7187126361
0213141992
7583675542
9887877112
0173174749
6642666204
8227288277
2626007062
2071791077
1586297077
2759288277
6407360277
7179902664
6484846207
7935111355
7663030660
8628766624
4427577724
7622565924
7928769557
8653006323
9628612023
9467516670
7822999789
1639313318
2199559515
9294992999
1299924629
2196552324
7782350298
2626361985
1246141249
The puzzle
Given the above hint, what famous landmark do the numbers below refer to?
3879099777
2735873352
5276886271
9193939919
5173963148
5890245690
2176424239
2795882540
9776853547
8991669516
8845685858
5646844688
8069598806
8031581778
8045604197
5966633795
8545603274
6649471145
1056160151
9114121493
0609665900
7713333738
6367635158
0153501798
4560002201
8110462791
3697603409
6963868663
3800403040
5978494446
3622772773
5924767598
5332495309
5922436606
3964843819
3803153435
1800920937
0999880000
7381334451
1488211977
1101910991
0373733037
0080880807
2367121370
3433334353
2875194408
6081159793
1931159054
1535145477
2511515215
2085555488
6623026262
5976115611
1235212222
4501614104
9924744727
8691881993
1191519151
9621765897
9990647729
9120573253
7904871465
4594723111
4062707141
3874117331
4675333332
9932433182
5315135131
1011707371
1113313693
5640035074
9192289182
8333933918
7778816787
7776776556
4575577252
3324433758
1895026952
5252933558
9962926252
3192576246
8219588815
8012611666
6636116166
4565156150
8534163456
4296109330
4814554688
2865555511
6515683268
6829875144
9359952407
7254854007
5029948095
9579999999
5821058541
8275827887
3069893030
6354665534
0502452625
3615255255
4604846608
8767777767
4624762553
8607716045
3762004191
4664083949
3614117875
9019101692
3301005103
1149489041
8733753878
3218456600
6859415143
2698686642
1826085103
3670316852
9455195595
1793299721
0579559559
1828559821
9496524733
1859198671
9493130728
1877554048
0575040247
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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