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:

9739191399
8267778277
0164805646
8212682282
4491119911
4212742242
9267671264
8462744553
9112162561
4218750355
3494631966
9819915642
3520435942
1814502929
7580035522
3493992346
2206605622
6623235261
9721910926
5935434579
1181124881
8416118664
5589588855
7115772511
9911191409
7283418864
6096998889
0412088559
9705798865
7638678858
4502724047
8486558888
8030430380
2031302613
9174119791
8182307984
9534069576
9084517244
4000511206
8572753868
1289512515
1925775128
6022562202
1759315913
5615956566
1055546891
1759558634
1924585081
1755546002
6222556972
6337823678
0575570515
9099606977
0466680656
8118916798
3517213675
2370716772
2550376616
5398806655
6988376617
4629460912
2738862103
2629487548
4738935359
2626941518
2002992020
7538258835
4716476141
6628928656
4639444466
0878186503
0494155267
6436973893
2476531737
2834904207
2894192812
2421522522
2424924942
6936262963
0076907620
2867822155
9021418798
3201115500
0386928765
0152218565
9833118398
5671605126
8675682765
5820528550
7227524795
1126616826
4944449415
3883303832
7687777958
7443359743
0023879846
6233155448
1729149442
7967119856
1021803758
1726071201
0755970559
0323151203
1533133185
6604550460
6081030203
5170333180
6131153600
6167870551
1984050501
1772033776
1485906139
7076389761
7492969255
1077925203
1770317013
1497994049
7089000790
5022352225
4875666486
0640466044
8142518552
9720797770
8166767376
3064733644
3744749220
0046477749
0164722593
8040732428
5762741331
8687502095
9462262994
2013556610
7690078238
7348056613
0500550695
8059860918
3332302330
7448078044
4694446793

The puzzle

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

3332373243
2822772508
9889921980
2744227648
9488336893
6329477940
0045529543
0843076948
8300832948
3404327903
6304377458
0629357475
7942208191
3817772378
6602632368
5648151468
5575572752
8813817398
8112148171
8330535805
4541557184
7549459369
8950277825
8937221887
2718291325
2237757327
5195556964
5857997875
3577179135
9113391389
4981126101
8781022852
8681058606
8970147281
0480527416
6686336686
8471007874
4581111105
8950509805
0092220002
9089264382
9502203324
9429568358
1504860758
3009340609
5493359939
3584553585
3699838891
8009290829
9922888992
5055006055
2115131521
0409090640
8770377370
1617795671
5305037571
6980030645
3784630625
2183097671
4315025375
1999991999
1780778707
5219192921
0976060947
7294179717
1799164132
0979737892
5789178319
1894158059
7274107617
5004777945
9056019470
8168140406
9054552227
9326184857
5106514501
8360506835
9127729722
9054004550
5054154544
6028922397
9342754307
3043204313
6903280163
6805940488
6923733276
6006966609
3845244858
9538455835
9346794244
3999519579
0999104777
7148607499
1039495427
5110694409
9999999479
9577787507
9799795799
4909404699
7127717502
6061716681
0726454081
9370489095
4941557659
1357837051
0567716657
0033383081
3349949311
5111537015
3339653699
3922121293
2551150741
4743378453
0044094240
0323332250
6251890290
4458791791
0217198250
8137274248
2946878743
3759333997
1528918898
3796898986
2828728887
6800550546
1508942715
3758337067
6898824517
6796310686
6196916804
2510751015
6603161604
5465466445
0720500000
1852115528
2862142499
1700197413
5769553014
0725537028
1703520070

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