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:

5841441185
8081220184
4128883162
1111003181
0303739073
9899831081
2778703182
0875723172
0154649185
0096483143
4708676647
4955259545
5663136566
2541655425
2480778209
2783185355
2751124237
4541369004
2403731407
2705784300
2708950292
1874663196
7569354096
4158324176
9085453290
4454554190
9693363996
1131123167
3331753276
0060980096
5339818388
5026890606
4831310648
6016690614
9753610316
1191190910
6899864998
5858848845
7066690664
3883118386
2727750277
1117131172
8175913579
4448004348
1927912799
7161631592
8810513177
0647810772
2290410147
1170970299
6675721076
6670492233
6654498917
2674900895
6559565549
2599555522
3524777539
6671167661
6355969553
5621464664
0066006256
1144104114
8808880890
1144666414
8626554668
5045456460
7166506164
7463586164
4303784718
0258100194
8435287050
0544788208
9822859268
8852693005
3519056765
7952999256
8287897208
0015056018
3355683765
0885282550
4171114217
8144996841
0442240042
5917771902
2000555021
6918050007
0213291915
9740454912
4440391941
7684655902
4928192712
0979217444
2628572852
7974725475
4028874414
5119192415
7357525372
1105014350
4244427444
4368874853
7269676966
5597279256
5603036663
6131771316
4586115484
6639180898
7593269939
8199288301
5569624432
6133297115
8011589501
7515515517
7455959614
4003440314
2282332282
2666455381
3549189384
7586865687
6396459304
1813312582
0392991287
1459870734
2684177757
9713507184
6556491138
3813173186
1615771658
2677227264
2271990732
4477474577
5056016257
5846030848
7816534937
4056787415
8082782388
5043750704
4157017405
7453437954
8066585000
5882828858

The puzzle

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

5350998209
8205746204
6983298704
2720192769
0628497204
9951997589
6444746704
2479792744
0298998208
9449499214
0494525435
0507619887
1899729944
7546756825
5349505480
3359753589
7840770487
1507675565
5403555053
0394203994
8297030368
2888698538
4392531164
9404340231
8020290262
2271331132
4888348388
9125592531
2306030262
2620220368
4201579101
5985073022
9795567361
1448573162
9539413081
3279773321
7770777082
7373373358
9869983961
0191019108
5508054625
5804153680
3631364045
6323317170
3397633775
8718131778
6461767149
3883358631
5443044075
1133013180
1804180149
5518571185
2000630560
5995949509
5551559051
8887679509
6193579565
4224782551
5554280161
9350051580
8381118133
4475181452
1331757331
4744776142
2960992680
0123698480
2400211182
3738491330
8052942142
8009458133
5511212615
3806131606
1211323818
9717373169
6666996946
5524091946
9034671959
3399033816
4213833618
1543493645
3750337707
9515259115
5553755555
2887685288
2282552585
2517326672
5583210598
3758533651
2283523559
2583712631
7269924714
5769063558
7139293065
5504282102
7144501427
5199191991
5760075055
5544004474
7204207422
7139539111
1770495948
6889483924
3439415943
0976658748
6509093723
9888998284
2188182918
4834813948
8837895783
6270290722
3393133311
8385938599
5761371277
0330030000
0524332202
3764922484
5363372793
0925024883
0591370990
8531903684
8248999288
1261767711
5177353933
7483575435
1540550445
8561383898
5183962015
1541341236
1448502324
8545324052
8178188418
8318431338
8313551553
8663464864
7245959577
8148989375
8643123774
7618154108
8228468494
8273449431

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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