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:

1520650401
8788585885
6153959939
0557665555
0130731101
6527704521
1138781532
8728663378
8585904093
0788692791
0515160511
6963981691
9477336479
2332222323
0989996980
1539832481
6864220683
9354811571
6871861421
1811882419
7151452117
4754343454
5677775576
7892882282
2321112112
7724386766
4892468373
5614398415
5321433467
7822364135
5475474554
3590535075
6144614461
3007570300
9553757955
5154569620
6170585009
5584528954
5077529821
3477553104
1532523320
9535454487
9885495416
1663471778
1583327827
1533355331
9435445535
0883536058
4712474417
1867446716
8233612397
4132992998
6331035358
0975992306
4984018607
2309992308
7715635671
7766282766
9599797393
1989118907
2050178857
1913493770
4945494630
4960482713
4759144132
7739117991
4065450656
8013111103
1280328232
2950190058
1161256512
4124611264
7760767516
7870807087
0050772075
5080057582
9860761514
1466271565
0300950575
0465376274
8838889213
3022001239
6797771793
6555558536
1110114010
9288014216
2034104239
5475051236
0381485290
9323354733
2516488922
0315889520
0217862386
2531030867
2574504095
2437535353
2281622261
6316003143
5577445455
0074880087
4950021805
4052464586
6052913139
6911747751
9010904822
6952775995
4020400404
2078778080
9991994999
6911966991
1199199119
8665985969
8986888899
0756507785
3975959935
3796143099
8795929158
0666959934
0995368879
8789956645
8669493896
3904230203
5917219551
7966269662
0896798006
8916769914
5966216872
0668223752
8996792753
3607420681
9499238605
1200768985
8496968981
9688598908
2080498888
7993195701
6586668285
3318135918
0822208882
7293263297

The puzzle

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

1593696646
3710507337
5406556545
9220702222
2710552005
2700580009
1410695206
3760578700
3790512459
2210573703
7840234273
1588536929
5883581811
1843579743
5880129118
1558515555
7403137814
1881588885
5840555805
1840558548
8700878804
0211212950
8843980694
6499841689
9369336439
2458832899
9835976684
7781418950
6049140607
3885471430
8575212363
4580794753
3418762521
6159392303
2329630301
1320110021
6434496743
4044064400
3333333351
6675072506
0892901306
4830337990
0436397410
4836875868
0432986917
4453939533
0696466909
0830380500
7222022202
1836061383
3159904929
6455226546
7449963831
1151749424
7845986386
3373373373
6453040503
1179791993
7146271162
7855989575
6966069026
2444424594
1107881506
2877227887
6565556850
1136457894
0866026854
2706356594
7925157892
8760661890
1391611993
3656868686
9870505756
9836188866
6661336666
9691529153
6676641353
9856177323
9661820449
5676643550
6262689266
8195585915
2239992293
7542430254
5151555711
6980450265
9936955953
2880252261
3712330269
1098535251
3891267220
3110847185
1518906219
1351980599
8190722566
3125753471
1898211281
6567995679
8351221838
7510200505
3363694528
3349404852
1649700704
7186468777
3633182641
7333133777
3133636633
3946336469
1269666986
3686468666
9947494874
2310532021
4933193999
8436141666
7866976986
9940145564
9937144407
8948446881
9946525748
7860458876
3498039459
5208365738
7965951303
9445081617
5948382033
9498999499
2945025909
7405303060
3218328888
5991051911
4312694340
3628954280
1801201343
9424544195
0487491086
5844554095
7272997240
1664404661
8346464483
7314341376

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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