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:

5556997256
1994018907
1831881312
7525550572
8710117086
8807851987
9020413052
2850281076
1514217582
2216010552
6686548497
4446938547
0651740869
9791930599
0829298833
9593338539
5952724597
7188748837
9633939469
0403690463
1811181158
1111158191
9989996989
0015051300
8555151597
8330658188
1460956508
2960856387
2739291591
8242250181
9707504240
0402776900
6341763151
0403369189
9079386619
9443119359
0072702270
7731551713
3309333990
0497704740
9017088119
4995458448
8420351214
1902418274
9460430248
1619918619
2263250238
3414436144
0787818170
1881451418
8585581584
7773037907
5525029205
4158348539
4444191404
5340631405
8363032509
2144021485
0164947584
7055027505
8672172479
5011062608
6855640088
0654459679
4190279673
5150950988
2255572453
7777447673
5705565079
9924469284
7962376329
6736373166
1628616811
3339939635
8837339278
6611216365
5638879235
9102239131
2883379311
2205679856
6806453800
4530425085
0501854906
2678113842
9774817006
0105157031
5525255282
9933024903
5047557805
1464613346
2607460475
1389753647
0380963432
7112256479
9814453672
9335553937
9665636665
5224626475
2422662742
3388883639
6009624187
1096762572
6608694936
1626714191
6507986501
1630776006
6509999399
9048649006
6596795995
9017617616
9875224006
9575002101
9572701803
6565253879
7842546046
1074777414
7462565427
9525229502
4545004545
9872227727
3331672378
7672151879
8517692757
6170251752
2505012219
2988179812
7179717759
2217212307
4131192417
5755251275
8336099068
9992333747
5942173794
1336701900
5932306044
1921391813
9336113319
5948229289
5992829892
8232032802

The puzzle

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

4470657684
9590243600
4420982417
9822649269
4040507676
4870970490
4820948070
4442544452
9057679755
9598389899
8003276000
7613896269
8037350604
5037223554
0007343689
5673356675
0416161041
6037307533
8000222020
7017271172
1319111111
3896888366
6899060005
0648768476
6109516966
0618523125
3399763920
6698072105
6896317819
6609833863
1730570107
8958008809
6558485655
1289772529
6858558888
6288589904
1739417465
6732573516
6588487360
6759544828
1636918986
8114959224
0154535909
8122171413
4116306529
4694999964
0124941294
1916319186
8759191859
1922552259
1613116613
6859358868
1866226186
9008808598
0521555252
0009527720
1022142455
9023584843
6828380313
0556149461
5687893312
4287209124
3832395392
7375216194
1405814323
1189595118
4444444494
2911219312
9602506524
2007020373
6716738624
6569747606
6705806421
3512470997
3516129993
1112111101
3705430454
6456756564
6312010232
6568868668
1811852319
1928438859
4737136352
2357958559
3000630852
5855552859
0333330333
2201118312
5595555869
5555959552
4262752140
3326977943
3266944574
3369748184
8302745629
3102772830
3201612626
3322424432
8669966668
8406780448
2993193239
4149641446
8214480444
9246116221
0700990909
8249966511
9206117175
8944611408
0210424338
9103230292
5995499954
1713031306
2895199892
5458258842
2999999299
5753101867
7998171588
2815127728
2918250615
1999145374
0437971628
1850269009
0929572647
4927900535
4931520722
7120972107
4869268896
4208585480
0427117474
1931011359
8424484222
2434640244
5848252888
6569256696
2935993229
5824985913
5549683061
7435484773
2434464462
2439914486

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.

Post a comment