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:

2401076085
6044931194
1903221815
3859236910
6769231084
5033539035
8754346583
1291121910
4966846895
4066470604
7147682186
2534476590
8311674596
0305278297
7233878590
3333774353
0576996570
2289028290
8685582586
7438878847
1612727727
4105150011
9460887099
9127828297
2785777277
1725765796
4110876675
9605719235
9407728125
4621748509
7665996915
5113171503
5574979154
6224268024
0411114204
3379079104
9900614504
5700674554
5623768508
1109069024
9499299999
0816718177
4205626265
8953389893
8306531036
8996764997
8405597869
8346301146
9456547500
8209746405
5681227463
2781510158
8894931366
2696220945
5686989942
9886999986
2694262692
7744555444
2886428344
5441554454
1417441444
6350406003
4249792744
0114000044
0782336282
0717724228
1402390349
0780024901
1447426159
0119379657
9999999829
7599227795
5422284205
3255352637
8218992984
7529899627
1308382799
1421754905
5006392957
3817227784
3343443063
7782627657
8882228112
8183919839
3330939350
9160238610
1102823668
6763923850
6177928113
5876619369
8850858025
5955599753
7887819873
2012227135
8585553850
4419698053
7147058023
6940657075
5487529155
8200218171
8516148454
5407447480
7191167271
3928368271
4558097231
4207997234
7600767370
8262228262
9383791783
2224442441
5706705500
7738387387
0788800883
4197149111
7179979719
0196984405
7738173890
7179822966
0747397097
4107739030
6233434059
6558950176
8739298126
8678023254
3877230278
0577350371
4122224154
8266338226
5357853258
9997696479
7899597587
9249424999
8318033306
5748444455
4738171448
4848144885
7838506876
8899577563
4519183429
4298584882

The puzzle

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

1325331633
7206870606
4738384334
0645115566
6637535737
7305383306
0727595141
7215113033
7605107469
4705321081
0592050609
5533255522
2288922882
8353935933
3089738873
0083785465
8589927410
8683769292
8589987098
8259285195
9649491667
0474470173
7636023623
6131856027
6249296377
2799773029
6676557663
5226626457
5099990379
1113693167
0132193201
9908989919
2286682697
4966669164
1157154317
5440853614
5031269907
3902892999
8255180117
5863069114
5666577633
7669742988
8366026857
5603770585
5665740518
1256512561
7845778447
8366186666
5761566105
5609090500
8365121402
7691181243
4361262357
9661662426
4891566530
4601111444
9550222255
7895494047
8367383637
2691599699
4404200742
7236256273
9967467493
5060565150
2455595843
3857095243
3903457773
5757262243
8908955293
5407867443
7309100771
0623552303
9557077977
5747447777
6670556465
0553169460
9379034447
0600505971
9543098903
5633434025
9417081409
2354646409
1449781409
6894987487
1992895109
6477796507
9889991189
4134235421
0790007409
6633386369
2273195831
2320867129
2270600765
5613601980
5220387048
1393313933
2624112241
6240664924
5274747544
1217271217
5167515566
4934144339
3723632603
3068336033
5105771500
5923701716
5068688526
3063362820
5003610201
1127690102
0014048401
7522227532
8118815869
3926796732
1192111649
8311617539
7828461432
8858797569
4795417632
8331317862
8028882088
3437303473
8945445955
6929056029
8888757853
3347053053
8582252955
0770087822
1270953023
4940546953
3788614725
3613904150
3737203423
2719757417
6357945104
3287997379
6618289282
2353233333
6839938836
8780708008

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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