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:

7338373389
3343020743
2224224602
3565635629
9553995564
7482095509
1920134009
6180994662
5145025643
1230193304
6871416468
9381840961
5155519458
4480908853
8524819983
8198919488
0454647956
0006000067
9288228913
6661616761
4943849449
0033436343
1277711772
3150993110
9956777969
0240989132
9053781604
4953962735
3147727203
3553918610
0431061076
1897262733
2948661772
5179601536
9632652475
3351951039
1667167015
1333202423
4471741772
2366362436
1273514182
1909895442
1059282199
8130939113
4867295144
4949199124
2484222448
8188181149
1442114992
1031835183
2789276949
1290133649
2335733796
1550793999
7209096399
9953339395
6699676994
9494971949
6296636694
3969993896
1253324315
8181248216
6166416364
8854887458
9560558694
9038854614
3688946295
9560582218
1405024314
2132224415
3421312691
6303042080
1022755681
9770215650
4720415469
1118111859
2626122681
5475645460
8018615680
4947457894
0092902909
6166061061
6667671946
1113363183
5548319385
5821472986
4704801003
5753661041
0907803047
1183369969
2341341864
4268633695
6702833344
0867563465
8799837961
0869938694
1144161441
3333643363
3494347393
5596935965
7775457755
3297002373
6396999663
7935333379
6229119241
3229120320
6395414683
6275450349
3228466312
7397115082
0128797123
2442692953
4948497922
3327832624
9408853863
4822998724
8666283662
2228352823
3924797132
9494994959
8848068048
5686717653
5955895876
5138331583
1877111787
9302211553
8561161578
4505661586
3708018083
2434731983
2791121094
2103846270
3091439428
5191498013
0190320911
0791977920
1803333383
2281421222
5190059000
3003838030

The puzzle

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

9055150315
4593653393
6490707469
8066088660
2598151529
6496189944
4053631602
4553069706
2597014096
6493191098
6761611616
6766266662
5890295090
3178483894
5262112221
3892185057
5876528124
6162635845
5291427308
6776231787
5499499472
4644469144
0808058504
9995955972
1195951191
8194699544
4612299144
4657359102
9494458999
5499759171
6358161318
5380335893
4769545467
6781987669
4927999949
4959385365
4388987217
4329971110
4755936752
6788142270
2922223292
1116165115
3999999981
8189898818
3773778373
0216678398
4203078311
6334198378
8053278782
4616998375
3900732758
9496383618
9571983793
4547244848
5010433893
8858337688
8404443840
1222882813
8333733798
5777972957
4011110103
4744827844
5668858596
7655776590
7110771102
4336616143
5343670802
9185177506
5476373596
5397311194
8183303283
5060303506
2112111024
0044864800
5059559310
3580259004
1071684200
7126119820
7182551800
0626863804
1426641412
5804284485
7513050305
1599005910
1715571725
7593569002
5414677524
1593674435
1545033232
1493217244
9270947181
0577121033
5597186509
5295765354
2075962198
0575757555
5284782877
2652922222
4297629745
9093110999
5055905905
8607760788
4354375434
5600350530
1111312103
5132415135
7462970530
4634975135
3023275439
5535600433
2347393835
6820064798
2786257765
6034093138
1289052565
9689192418
6554643165
5838853888
0803903798
6337367538
2288987926
1135552913
8670787926
3344844838
4041114203
4239814908
8123087203
8520354823
7406514833
6800462928
8206208820
9725757797
2385539253
7327572377
7777997799
2287960412
9787304875
9225598291
2307961772
7387212031

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