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:

4060797433
0906000650
2010788616
2700103873
2030180527
0900555000
2367773736
8230824808
4706774440
2010112102
9339303839
3813385231
7337278372
3757767337
7711190177
1583677237
6901283331
9498767139
9345107367
4598000337
1575837734
7295832558
0466788295
0022746408
7575743321
0472777777
7293572522
0571717500
4015881088
1066006615
4284287244
9117191712
7377876833
7077137517
1791999173
0746097274
9660096174
7051787832
7525994533
9363797512
9725244815
9400884457
5423235026
1905680268
1625960555
8025952559
5423255324
2803682020
1620414696
9900880989
8553159475
6909853321
4908144889
0790674439
6816274389
2473773472
5855454837
6217464621
9399999389
9141349319
7973595597
0948249888
3422113223
6814946418
9634137613
9614186957
4914250031
6612935780
0613256874
9934994038
4702840258
4568513851
7675286301
8515786858
6102216201
2566776258
9469146911
1608816808
3803182351
8833883839
8636748648
8056775803
8889145572
6829774379
1869780891
8137773738
6669464466
4886114116
1036700063
1424224482
6885188856
6860262868
5738675635
4242242422
1261112164
4885144917
6841120121
6860233507
6234661252
6261636601
9421711919
8800300808
5962464446
8126281112
8309531909
9102304992
5821583559
9221591779
5109203248
8960379448
3366877815
0991360760
7391303187
4052913172
0002920840
1097333171
0561464146
3906007339
4396779346
7652925277
9590557942
3230762437
8060535831
9890506538
7003164089
3500773003
1293494169
9864148991
8351555315
7087787787
8668466664
6893469886
2166562525
7268678722
0480998108
6890526874
8486545187
0288407665
8163612847
7488259912

The puzzle

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

9824724878
9126810869
7779171777
8290118201
4708373874
4726346713
4824714670
7208720670
9802730834
9894337640
9872191979
4786373563
8599689999
7028420242
2880772072
9888160943
7028102318
9728607347
4085430252
9890414539
2120739610
1125790213
1123087348
8196711004
7163788712
8335993388
7195777799
3227630233
2123032313
1166767666
4847844847
9480680804
6351355530
3228322333
8620330683
4680381395
3828620171
1220306785
8480349927
9820348140
7949699997
9316111636
5826112811
7592756979
8616118181
7929183998
8916136694
3896168790
8316795558
7326164216
5356363055
0130430324
0991701799
8522328503
9949599945
5952091099
2876629995
7574109023
3404499895
5447321729
5562300057
4963486521
5161752501
6461434609
5561781573
2551771517
4162727781
6963886966
5467466644
5267476674
4859353843
9473003790
4711041114
3097403027
8761118661
9051182881
3091437822
4853917306
9499094494
8763414709
6482277408
0799047144
2494044202
2144276389
9442584888
2445552544
2082442442
0749097247
6494269946
9722292229
4081985144
8358689262
2109037282
9136585628
7150419198
8119119188
4443835844
2121717292
4822826348
6963385663
8010909980
8387008888
8681888881
6124515223
6901516696
6017566145
8680525283
8110577552
8013598160
8981800350
6208398243
8679045237
8673640473
6063609961
3873300083
3639393633
8078686767
1869017890
6649164644
7703003003
2521978047
5521522734
2626508148
2573868612
5522582240
1571571115
2622868526
2532833285
5303030530
9556555655
3988377628
4968524937
3618566534
4388021320
4699567024
1618310611
6994246922
4689949686
3388588385
4757045707

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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