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:
2491812999
7010300173
2191517511
2296392323
2291307954
7006770596
2011927261
2296588161
2290359457
8400236566
1145111545
9484966819
9457411546
6666336566
8886565846
8555181550
3134136013
5740510745
3772347885
1780338060
1669288776
3775701114
9773337933
1669216669
3923732239
2785323925
1360800833
5045804900
2226749395
2920765522
2040925397
1068110068
2826126826
9280829888
4322924239
5045706054
1896098068
8953635338
5818080188
1999791471
8966701935
8958076540
8533731128
8590875466
1999635828
4433344334
5278882857
1919191041
5107171079
1663491851
9515581831
4239791301
3750654871
2149971041
4653835856
1179833893
9019348050
3036658997
0330530053
9696565697
0553953905
5443134180
4684448866
2941113380
9163975200
6822823867
6891127782
9825159981
5961335339
6812776622
2193832813
5841348882
5458424260
8833207092
3153356599
6766566085
9166516166
6453664568
8238282383
3836383636
7733433733
8550857808
4101818841
8088083098
8836333862
8595259840
7825557098
9528723341
4555123692
4388683800
3624170045
2481880715
8110830994
0463672808
7772172615
9777970798
0900589905
7672772078
1848410844
0801980318
4541444441
8203703003
6402770007
8802945907
6804773969
4561707759
6241490011
8804910994
8770308037
3880684360
1228251882
5522555220
4729295822
3592395230
3958408220
3747258924
8862381287
5045745396
5892317942
3021188363
0081302295
0090390939
8581777818
5366116355
3022102140
5835133881
The puzzle
Given the above hint, what famous landmark do the numbers below refer to?
4574154817
3144444013
6919999461
0605179016
1419898053
4842048863
5860049807
7112274011
1107698063
9559381467
7039362668
6898399819
8582302666
9599355955
2038388883
6856458664
4626968496
8582582882
8054578105
2267721672
2224777402
9583558983
7977858603
0500178683
1459942477
6774772472
4734877167
2235533525
1699596656
6618886866
6504550635
2594922789
9298598352
6634567362
7034594816
2604557581
0270923920
3489283992
4604144464
5024555540
5689947534
4214028107
0004981955
4024288686
4079507417
4422942249
6000330206
8089939298
5455554284
9193454294
0458932286
9429839229
5887952289
5719134286
1966309094
2477598874
5986075611
1876300540
2971339299
8496585459
9802722882
5187751888
1666779666
5305265381
4403718459
7714678627
8078878467
7877770387
2523662359
7437449627
6488688466
2228118021
7223110255
2344124201
4079122085
1545818589
8151118503
5022224549
0072702707
0059220059
5758887285
2888153801
9877984739
6627332672
4244554245
9134233232
1609263681
9534332805
1205413649
3590559639
2998189229
8743993787
7166917666
8333993388
2963943458
8840494601
8160427250
8368390054
2760434557
2218710018
8316141530
2766597993
2516744494
8761777177
2746077420
6516156151
2216622612
6362565330
9769699567
6681827861
9000010029
1513771135
7267611130
6744569429
7465827827
0647769434
1598169020
2331629800
8743109322
4736370842
9262070882
9926999622
1962129701
7272072800
8980509985
4747770644
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.
Comments
Big Ben
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.
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.
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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