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:

1700051279
4013756629
6753666024
4189551223
7370858021
8295558229
6153361313
5030031051
6966056609
2478878724
6943717190
3222724157
5025786636
9925721144
8663942784
3035113513
5522757525
8935659552
6663966636
6242764477
1738288901
6109108129
6357688607
7101490109
6570052609
9529555929
0667992607
1188888107
2043052400
9005000959
5591590141
3157896785
5515316785
0965759586
6634899116
6061959016
0008030280
6555559586
4654155741
1909696105
3777373748
6268216422
9829282977
4133341538
3990990630
7320871678
5440476938
2368191428
3904443978
7891646650
1963396395
7329780772
5677886770
3374340072
3381275790
6760996690
7477775774
5558282715
7070200072
3888185318
7400511946
7480266750
0106128580
2107118642
8197169873
7482114444
8403848888
8145228451
2170828878
0697560092
6664667464
0000400400
9666000637
3727732776
5253535152
1565032452
7491037430
6232437472
8111900732
0211980457
2034232284
9088090080
5486668666
2484114821
8416516815
2436583284
9030649600
2084684958
8484653503
8486634088
4053404545
3445556553
3065130665
2475646657
2711512555
3745183668
3061475795
2419122708
4051678308
2445142129
6420386304
0279926711
3118111492
1974167187
7611619081
1777717181
2690026097
9940469014
7697225792
0011181301
2041444441
2753979797
4360333430
2206999529
5349155991
2700125850
4043960448
2041753731
4759383536
5361115541
7667667666
8083587835
2529537952
1221221226
5552550255
6231050266
3971031232
5712967856
3926057622
4369187365
5295559905
8366838386
4606464006
5091114950
0525150251
2286434300
2405164385
6890059305
9981654856
5954638906

The puzzle

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

9670767450
6505803650
0372759036
5806754750
6699655450
7500757050
1683708736
4000004450
3366063640
5359395433
2267057346
3216867949
1593817770
3655493276
3455099970
3030353370
7776297276
0104505540
7777767726
4199919947
6838136868
8071717777
3649890833
6617761766
1547757144
3677125659
3677157325
8571731006
6638749414
3527789951
8855544251
0675241306
0041359456
5015853496
6838233741
1533335610
5266654296
4918949381
4814431448
4538443752
7690879609
1674566741
4148313343
7999999999
2332730227
4934307571
1642917691
5630898563
2398580508
2678539810
4873878601
7689278658
2234210405
5497010604
6759210674
8554118654
4488474875
0880010658
9450315403
6406052604
7377383743
2222282287
9582485429
0566555076
6101116149
2486012273
4200315746
7779085746
4715885046
1353188249
3954315169
2058391174
9515215065
9003171674
3428250165
1511111565
1494111014
4174194179
5855115084
7567550667
0661160566
7231332313
1300501001
9512656656
1031331313
9211348008
9341643302
0631338911
1301110643
7230384040
9076210183
1601591459
0956751132
1361301253
4382810253
9552990259
4111151410
9585885589
3212615632
4225552183
2977236145
6765755506
4563256263
0097065143
6875415263
1922116229
3886636883
6045505643
7251112105
5556655566
8289974719
5658477640
7396679959
1223177930
5989099639
7744779640
8945994859
3829339918
4947774639
5777977959
4928189198
9274110441
6241541514
3222523532
2848777744
4221526635
4248230494
2974595195
4828595774
6228130346
4514558623
6274152486
4621258126
6698972626
3459474226
5062550626
5132252138
8622334426
6118184176
8882278284

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