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:
4985794748
4309504935
6676367463
9991919991
9987549152
9601537756
6906521707
4787530040
9982987083
2761919772
5412111202
9594545954
1292912299
1794584308
2275923370
2201980242
9494929296
1775982850
4819526317
1970768255
1874752575
1050143515
1344131344
4079559649
1810787111
3979333793
2859792525
9859919581
8668888636
8038100188
0171112701
0322010581
0436308288
8463910639
6356912246
2988642236
6688440168
3571237129
9559792579
5151551513
0144491623
5198221672
0910030510
3968149670
2868041110
4141563523
9845129445
4102216485
2811124238
9159919194
4525655455
4145044154
2302122211
0811200218
8457814853
3929548863
5389014832
5634298665
9939393914
1884514885
4666444663
5380808559
2933992832
6467567674
3277933333
9265126251
9661913666
9607922932
9261257455
4261940108
3807130174
9867145396
0634777403
2722727712
6800481406
9000590035
0362097405
1075026015
8363011016
8609197736
8550921706
2168931425
4313098165
0805131726
5997874765
1399939166
6887768729
7077779077
3434434163
8612591625
1691637047
4788366673
9076776077
9579873412
6036376063
4414221442
7567353677
2668666632
3600336015
7774065572
7173280572
9178161931
5373765564
3119199161
3573232353
5540114150
7774777777
9318988133
8783488787
8367476706
6351858318
8164551868
6181584700
8387837202
8169815720
8767955130
8357414204
8018313081
8195010087
0426772277
1683116318
8415325756
0413054781
2136096569
0496392664
8616307938
The puzzle
Given the above hint, what famous landmark do the numbers below refer to?
7359871307
7256835019
7055799015
2286366752
2185351182
9056445645
4719744747
7953887755
7286782237
9229492222
1385555882
0860767006
2565776552
9865522352
2169558362
0521124249
9585102804
9825104956
5579840285
5992434587
4971530937
0404290085
3199339921
7795370935
8345434585
3353540335
7401995047
2666767210
5412224614
1631336116
1331316234
4802214234
5856177247
3598566116
3081167214
9998627134
1374773411
4395139185
5549004859
6116158616
7420453659
8240179683
3026679851
4224974651
8699803416
2222412243
0000060039
7378783537
6671716741
0349816231
0604080747
4990982533
8445302747
6730816233
8595143252
8225234184
6534399240
1360279588
7191791781
9800449530
4845434854
1111113141
8882872208
2118421670
2118703685
4518255777
1050724651
8513758837
1222822123
3068238300
2850188828
4114214111
9947591731
1543614031
1540969492
6539525083
6502552205
1237672123
5949090595
1963413611
3540944414
1150520940
4153778283
0913923581
4113180342
0953131133
6177517756
7446876674
4857557557
1010711108
8581987360
9292929342
7590522670
3297708554
8597757975
8551611854
7230437022
3582155558
9136991319
1972721929
5075650700
8833338838
7728118876
8977167553
9968756020
3723318948
1877330378
9167876552
3129725349
1710098532
1879122507
4433215609
2667112674
3322222339
9599495542
0069006107
7763336737
0544299985
7196692005
4625477427
7198072105
9878191887
8898898184
3152112325
6599509985
7033077003
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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