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:

9705750907
7211717772
2222228412
6407717048
7700770007
4333450007
7056777047
0967119902
2301057718
7030710772
9826969929
4170941773
3136461333
7632006230
1334993314
7334962530
3156951234
1620431773
7870090305
3336470512
5545598158
7888558879
1590515950
0170061709
0455594950
3607055959
7683814678
2709551100
6465498900
2541298808
9555234745
3515511548
9585819020
9075207896
8380789951
9950955590
9595299052
8385855888
4950505594
3079709990
9600092900
8855585882
9466955496
0090044099
3130351013
7512052983
7351351889
1183894401
0395955482
1098982983
5048440858
8051015200
9596005695
5756593567
9790776980
4167093600
9388946697
5944643888
9007043880
3718115977
6410330141
8351818817
8292528522
5018755771
5204554440
8252568536
5294759108
5292774991
8202866205
7254860740
5213013057
0808081090
6337673076
2227773220
6153119356
3726411076
5649381056
3768613250
2040871996
0263883350
2457047052
6069609966
8763266236
2080888088
6064777042
2060700050
4480857160
2463076159
6057615778
6053762377
1551157140
5114746751
8985507385
1111111112
6646336404
7065217155
7312406441
5540231104
4635147150
4261157855
7071842610
1551979530
5850165732
1426361711
4493032612
5115154115
2220661712
6376535670
1159869518
4423342431
6066606066
2593259392
5313319593
0122151712
9157715997
5660416997
7117152916
3211101562
9993555392
5645415312
7503050055
0469449909
9823029929
6191916166
0006773700
0599986461
0463061169
6563974928
9163082330
0041763797
8262319071
0480227712
3484357004
2492261129
3494363806
3464334463
0489222048
1860900898
8092220298
2487375238

The puzzle

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

4880500765
9193464600
9309416332
6383437337
4869502309
2173577515
9783003997
4369363333
6206404676
9850550088
7922929972
1133311133
9264040966
4646696694
8959598593
7645018936
4986598932
2573320636
1216696894
6611749193
0852986461
0575091433
2706963463
0365531091
8601589085
0751977079
1809981888
8375575593
2642886628
0556005506
3505764263
4648861362
6944965600
3581231663
5992831627
6503558600
3543335394
3377639627
8833884503
6116661462
6165970545
9935515578
9818028876
8235064096
8169922627
6911591615
1115551351
8567987887
9238722723
9169060096
0392092020
0360403466
4998299928
0220500450
8584115118
0368582136
4360489212
0392734439
8920114076
0368183844
3518427887
6976037224
8520433228
2178137201
6966633298
0893330998
2230023207
2222939227
8286447864
0019960491
2131808563
8792808613
5641296532
8710990933
0489616963
5555119543
7566476645
5003108510
9919919932
8996698963
5509005509
9696889697
7792517952
8608068807
5710175172
7648479677
4703149809
3716517107
1444605952
3307485502
5595535689
0300375033
7003700783
8868888936
6869597560
1252677783
5510497069
6140675786
1926935766
3147505537
2423226264
4414144501
5519595156
2098298082
4908994083
3058294282
6748024081
4700418066
7747094184
2828726583
1283321381
8486484617
8766770062
0008881380
6266772766
9704871786
4284921380
6479572317
8796974084
0008174716
2700722270
3134941039
6633666336
4805882450
4060571605
2966672456
6646576635
0893422280
9166042270
9170186230
5022825081
0000060020
3111110113
4157175152
4454595504
1548290053
4070285513
2415415120
2553110011
0061320003

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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