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:

6507485830
9468168591
0461821410
6343310810
0577635520
1133130311
5655665550
4185318435
0808550898
1272221824
6502567569
2847467974
6206267952
8722740927
9007252967
9755777959
5299952992
1185440514
7669667967
8282728927
2281979881
4393149281
5213678240
1715549680
1979832080
3252138201
1319559231
0090949080
0282949280
7766272641
4381483410
5597979657
9477749917
1416147111
1179719718
3916079717
9425789487
5936519717
8945219610
3600519758
9057374584
4480593388
7943896318
1928972788
6465073884
8888373858
8909896085
8994494784
5414090314
5755597558
2912692326
0500505015
6222230625
3365356375
7979958797
4277230377
8254456095
0337958357
5846690026
4059855096
8765969865
5288687856
8376687686
6924166262
9559355555
6979143607
5325692827
2775650629
5768342178
5378316820
7605006707
1764616667
2215521952
6443643333
0953110999
0403582984
3745138055
7403601923
1405121920
0255183768
7143266011
3553187231
9519156704
5771706853
8119128149
5159759575
9311119933
3773838333
8541154111
6052265902
3550797538
1666663619
0307103751
5000055000
1444152414
7880455031
7252503001
8019693704
8412261514
8471605009
1448445181
6658868515
2243213324
0080805880
3338331134
5361813185
3851748132
7926545834
1201865820
0799315580
6662554927
0982743446
0637736756
0732782780
6132544484
0537777457
6666766766
0932773002
3982589352
1168561111
9198559870
5299825894
3633396337
0252825802
3338737383
0259859872
0237897804
3304755893
2698229832
5322922830
9723561797
6159365729
9434243955
9754526329
4419942032
6738937657
8444544884
1715371573
9159111911
4520252425

The puzzle

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

3637446603
9812054898
2422760079
2617488571
4833781106
9711779919
4863084810
2637427347
2622772226
8427337328
8033993983
2513414441
5562885565
7363833477
4228558822
4562926140
4512858677
5813877210
7513804094
5033832988
7545845892
9257057974
3557003756
3154846912
7205961717
1595155915
3458885883
9254924449
3202320423
7947077774
6255565566
3021833802
0982990080
4930147330
6588556556
6238125566
4431815632
6921952884
4980532410
0281577455
4141441810
0105519051
8354449857
1440505451
7973337979
1782617851
7925205850
8816741855
6169139017
3541149071
5579047776
0891707473
5809760279
4888769472
4183921400
0598959880
0182000022
5170717351
5703953359
4869768776
8761774678
2832111822
7955759959
6560855656
7747111774
7765148049
7740197614
7751718613
6930515102
7860189806
8080999161
4003168408
8818795268
5030565808
1392099208
9910994109
8633568358
0090090060
9597995401
4928649268
4036774406
9557757795
0890878910
7717327713
3494992434
3574894790
6604277416
4014692490
8736372454
3317798994
8293523729
3464046004
6336463366
7302993797
7347557337
3336528723
7396555989
3292973481
7305569164
6304511943
5087787590
2207227202
3353373375
3674939776
4343773044
4684033202
9162183595
3220173079
5970033370
2276833745
4449994492
3352512395
1778242827
6764967941
3814158143
2584612845
8100142940
6590652423
8003014822
3558412143
7554115725
6219556956
3808113088
5412512152
5354933993
7514181352
3514527420
7344566806
5554126367
5454995733
6026172405
9391789386
6044730877
2122570230
2334108666
2137171111
9031111111
2442552445
6324762266
6391719517

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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