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:

3144451453
0680347499
3500948005
3232857802
1701259553
8331118893
5556546451
1522551022
2502529504
4997977995
4544063654
6647721848
7628131794
5913562204
9746836842
3299932902
2973221893
2886662648
3527532758
6224466244
8208914122
6646612166
1072210437
0994516167
1518612488
1877718287
2271272162
4245426418
8996010896
6613164131
5776176312
8818585812
3775734375
6623646362
5664556403
6059076872
5885716362
1285346302
9624846875
0949386372
4369467001
1514239957
3137295259
4717301442
1533905167
9513395594
3329020023
1137317117
4764976999
0139209119
9736436493
3487887784
7176911697
9041799708
9470599775
7486760927
9436891878
9140758366
6446722883
7030521539
7781071342
2008671062
5044572146
7369371082
8638471946
3943770343
8223883042
6264672446
7979179981
5656851862
3303536035
3272172313
6026026038
8099182910
4606990326
1700276320
0422250015
4112686333
7096626318
5875682938
0080480684
6001616610
7287878208
7941448279
2575353072
2645273270
3754583279
2783686674
4890226674
8684088604
2876016669
8170095045
2070198544
1119082414
8943100256
8864558868
1073070730
8149188181
1976074706
2740044240
1641607432
7993079850
8475180864
0170277836
8314677812
5800991830
9400777490
6929239462
4942490254
3136883816
7515371256
9340520182
2167021132
8744352132
5270470185
8258552486
0223020932
6223221352
6858678756
1556126185
2030282928
8511216914
8565915524
2425810964
3320610263
9422992264
1113110113
8286846428
8104515584
4669240926
9041486929
4082408178
2040712619
2785481413
9088909281
5090790556
4045455004
9088999080
9282482229
2748788477

The puzzle

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

4430343066
1144684197
7432301078
1130354068
4430366102
1584313414
4534354445
7434644363
4145344434
9830008100
7559741612
7852180978
1810407820
5092150220
5010769772
2029191091
1750871153
1194444444
7816871886
5912779952
5366566805
1313876831
3883485364
2116616126
4443934937
4700616135
8269564836
5128236806
3970930835
0220716901
9050505709
8095098500
9062110629
8659664658
0110512501
1300095559
3745024701
2035714529
9478598629
8849362728
6577779675
3083444830
7117762971
0998221409
2721770221
1649074431
3377960421
1780272671
6848641477
1834942600
8886788657
2223552236
6299598256
5556556954
0662797606
4436097606
9731482206
7644452756
9495798256
7397058254
2788772817
0226024028
1020012503
4444744746
5475375346
4021812823
0566724016
9653574517
6075924337
1929944527
3602262620
2770727807
0620002560
4443434442
6643736764
9886632660
1363032840
3453522760
0993307667
0812352504
3979673696
8619338368
9845666194
1895656815
9503159099
9649309946
9649609509
3849143081
1975389428
3641681309
8005050950
6062268260
1721272141
5559715797
6676776726
0755615757
3746672226
7690670921
1469871191
4746350996
7181518597
5211101211
1882281822
0707272809
4222372436
6122411812
9304988206
4030081491
0578001889
3312478829
4618184681
3326121632
3303558735
8337348373
1555151295
2066251233
8817828793
7795151631
3585754485
3682958295
1619211291
5435855440
3970903339
1656661666
9507797009
3677941617
5500222116
0519736010
5407292012
1507903732
3994487157
8052194894
2844972590
3340479032
1084960884
7384370488
2924191122
3854445543
1092210922
1640961499

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