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:
6290369210
6788645814
6966678366
6296127547
2711172211
1058888505
0280300030
6996666690
4066806640
4424249249
4404181478
4644494864
1767317673
7843491288
0336284874
9742418473
9700999473
5380011478
6684876824
7897557897
2297000929
1831330918
5408430927
1368097027
5822870028
4806537918
3963526894
0536353955
6248882268
0480940490
5404114045
0500549677
6434111360
5006948532
6538969846
5787874242
0702189519
3115719563
0118299053
0504274902
9694599458
2966296012
7959987569
2696329963
7449474409
7375819777
2371728504
6875398563
7455708431
2375373335
7831931117
1875817717
6459745652
8801818008
9436444699
0185381051
5928444544
7918598715
6922584821
0112425408
5168383351
5418538347
5066366504
2825522582
0518188521
6550056560
5547755744
2325058094
8140205582
6836985064
0947455642
9578582592
2155550125
9499499894
1999110900
8383318038
5891210024
7752210120
9025450128
0081790065
4258310920
0092962019
0313282013
4020504254
5999536495
6437432328
4127202294
1593632095
2374202383
1835966099
3466369643
0933693569
4333337904
9559510952
3021899944
5208977654
6942679954
1564793548
2440917604
2556554275
4348887434
5559459481
3077550372
9500656474
7447751494
8326750381
2407787399
2292186472
1686565888
9049114914
9559555555
9498999946
9599968113
9089578564
0646672156
0449609026
9499286083
7863736939
6868377946
1163479390
9392762973
6132737761
2868568066
7723882387
1861418111
9399839999
The puzzle
Given the above hint, what famous landmark do the numbers below refer to?
4600388531
6820788293
0020590571
2743614540
9054114590
9492339544
8819198801
3232227233
7777788771
7400526302
2470861719
2104150118
7474586495
7405555454
3754134231
2414242421
0470404000
8120888018
1151447511
1971471471
3553283425
7070159710
9110874710
7068353410
9268153406
7900307571
8129483515
7737060377
2855858452
4008047000
6255995626
1434875620
5035467027
6565596402
0990540870
6129178372
3327234228
6666369363
3463664263
3554757543
1231437240
1043154263
8798948363
4619807260
5282634263
2980489677
7475702232
9390918249
9070745891
9925959952
7260767622
1390449339
2473727332
1089112000
5267490854
3505346844
0159090144
9580497844
7987797884
2377272343
6111446164
2479997475
6164460144
9380996109
0386720918
5538643525
6288180521
5990956900
6289822968
9388183893
0996199019
9538685665
0470128233
0441031321
5581193706
0480301348
5441919544
1460660466
1581018885
0564306360
6440106076
6165383152
6435560017
8268631285
4468508931
4453534454
8455554445
6238663366
8543884533
9168000468
5100331841
3098970687
9010629975
0798362198
5069599065
0785904959
7510671177
9690366330
2108621080
2780131417
0594781227
7093481877
7576871176
4524515241
6866884876
3565535216
3857133817
1721771127
0972917493
9630488763
6865345593
2757658523
5337735723
9393783497
5550558513
7185447581
4184416489
0865115888
4578007050
0565995900
0020116001
4528102640
0518645873
0875970969
0825956696
0225064934
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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