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:
9884783877
4991399139
0106601666
9765397759
4985308716
0884644016
9709377300
4789692577
1994320725
8401522547
1854191157
2204402957
1281892527
6000590655
4774141147
7522722547
3332702937
3422992320
6866666886
5550535258
4034436430
1004514015
3722815438
4561737298
3238969836
5847036218
8333686857
1257878275
3222422022
7876111777
0961919966
7177987141
1902877966
0261957926
1862122532
7562866521
9130189371
7064495488
9581448022
3034102367
3532133333
2711441249
6384246264
7565856768
9040444040
5028755285
0042200002
1302422025
2595192112
0508164672
1820281953
0093799759
2322279361
1828147863
4315693949
1235703742
3860194632
2920091993
7741994741
1399301903
6777393367
6601606672
9999904999
7765455583
0058730617
2666766419
1666786460
7752572957
0568706600
2066706766
1626116216
3025402343
4843201609
3912703039
5011802680
3760693684
3393393039
7332273692
8685581950
6996006709
3888060384
1348919189
1951011175
7892887787
2082550882
7882906346
1552590529
1058566874
1092074388
1080979124
3170436525
5636462615
4270933822
3422879517
4559959425
1002202912
4414468541
3158773857
2121132612
3827537337
4862552544
0305110031
3422552462
3422185059
3805594956
4126579771
4826552929
2825597947
2502772230
9505505995
4003770473
8666556855
9562161548
4506583265
4085709130
9002173992
6806721033
9694972694
1606650196
3833178931
1553337569
5487430614
9795178192
4701877891
7449270694
9016317614
The puzzle
Given the above hint, what famous landmark do the numbers below refer to?
0695309555
4130101083
5680404580
6451111116
5690147557
0450390566
8690413706
4610358496
0151426175
0343898742
6346495626
6328421214
6525983348
2522992222
6692862886
6345054061
6456466466
0328663203
3944749444
2857225727
8855785808
1350535555
2055563056
3946783890
2355615920
1917662229
8847683017
8870637423
2922336130
3186307183
4988437864
2322731227
7638787633
3063633464
1051556105
0880003880
7160993213
2210434730
7264915377
6165985426
7110111011
5564956956
2770672622
2165425915
6268926686
1378575187
8200226000
9678879988
5357737335
9360720881
1668594208
1372140173
4378864547
1362290567
4253923082
1355750368
7753982288
2263963706
9365939956
7703973773
1250707173
2093003909
4279112221
0419619230
3721819658
1856419388
9677075798
2992912698
5795975958
8998912789
0252612265
3309119330
2730130001
0450800055
2550522555
8579959790
2440567487
4430830807
0379947502
8740859298
4454110743
1826673687
4562335883
0576020643
5668290640
7702575280
6956791657
6333633633
1044070849
2332121563
7107367512
0429192020
9326796550
8170693350
5393593359
8897789772
6650162011
2292292520
9266926953
7472202277
5848899802
3187427332
1732297307
2191997412
8363447873
3770009307
9952529255
6522662594
3879593873
4257887984
7021717110
4436333434
8506305666
4256507249
7927317048
8871381425
4056352356
7922255336
5905980405
7921934376
0322964079
7951955955
1987212998
4975997797
0792772727
5321952823
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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