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:

8469178671
8467473601
3209572289
6215793638
7730253540
7167795671
9375373539
4782072048
2062003402
2828558220
3268662626
4385653838
0425555253
2932669232
2316996213
3325589303
4966612506
0915619247
4266619491
6465566394
4467047764
4859895825
9359133915
1271617272
9088595998
9059141385
4279552103
4888573176
4284545085
4381871368
1943919934
2091880198
3271427472
9488222821
3527932323
1221905350
2398961685
2928414396
9441991879
1991444428
0018865911
0218733884
7814795311
3884384604
3284767796
7418374818
3082728222
0804344342
0285358525
0583908593
9891198174
7447034507
9570505595
7555555257
5676776516
3291856574
8615575207
8982355556
8834196587
7083406155
9667646768
7979273292
1217726197
0001001010
3555353561
7926853567
4058746111
3081506191
0741856078
5341923010
2306467107
5302772518
8086976610
2002928398
2345563105
2346334634
3474937949
5202552205
6077447771
9285722597
8262882826
4353333443
2480142029
8953058035
3315915353
8952189615
3452302478
2350956802
4310604860
8213879129
2333221432
3507702765
9295254920
2000000200
4944939486
3762031725
6049804230
2745402483
0982551920
8767509460
4502133470
4139750417
7206130977
4086800474
6503637886
8336398376
1049917894
7774030477
8009005980
3636663916
6261467401
5611608156
3166668613
8822823288
9339938599
1043238403
0630738513
5738138713
5763207286
6886938559
8143775733
2241723906
7143001880
3249534293
7213520491
8994558989
9348776479
6143033606
3299393333
7911017091
5935252562
0030860125
7991654192
4225062698
6042272012
8389958092
5602602615
2552770522
5545455145
6208262068

The puzzle

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

2692511471
4249911441
5458835643
1803877311
4157831347
3774335473
4871787411
7463711347
2111120621
7004404447
4305942017
0022280748
4055596362
4595539039
6202564642
6539555365
4091214049
6321526323
0375930506
9202999292
6909076707
5767042417
0128751580
0135771316
2910871787
7700770896
4040049400
8900050386
7922192717
1005001500
1203706074
5924817071
6251414221
3963207001
2777636011
4414514541
0707000073
6931996174
2832337218
2002022001
6574060476
3266970874
9512969570
6562017664
9568564031
6162556166
7576055750
4548000008
9812992699
3614664136
0261499950
9262431206
4271429193
3665504734
3767545276
0252552525
4671414144
9304030002
3704243777
3567466353
5266115181
4342640811
3841348891
0847845694
4573010484
1888115811
8440545880
7816805681
1444410394
8444448442
4779390148
0356756846
0790754941
4475768781
0632230561
3101550149
8689996878
1388358931
7660160781
6116434561
1626265362
8045119375
3662572930
3147636442
1627580664
8266558885
7045605867
1627777616
3162111216
3622862388
0899008099
1941881419
2667276726
7070369037
8555955945
7352678436
0317378099
5516789799
0222806799
1938852099
2538325183
9134412439
1774714057
5501991855
3758775382
5395294152
3678075453
3244895859
6418075382
6701622888
9777117987
9885559828
9794773859
7757474501
9424974209
2537057289
9592153951
1478270807
5439873828
7524173909
0882960433
0192402449
7295312134
8898327439
9200897244
4399193134
4937667439
6225220425
0444402444
1622216269
5094155974
0339330333
9722552229
3131031100
1739933979
1739903005
3129902294
1039091524
1392955859
8729503649

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