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:

1117874330
8665979350
4309020600
8005479400
2590092230
6776177610
0240292330
9559699456
1277170211
4481414408
4985444844
4005808448
5554055055
2565653552
2715712717
2005767198
2004643002
4595874928
2555727251
2555857923
9772962917
4634535446
5225292475
6676124561
5009353029
1768252429
2669052016
2989792905
8072334579
1654154466
4134511345
5470404004
4762979497
3557457077
6183336338
3784907038
3472576731
5744402566
3452505369
5433331399
8387872960
9164276464
6116276312
7225266993
0909858991
0597957960
4221112413
7766478964
7066767969
9361606391
4495242224
3670227066
6960599666
4497672474
5587158551
4990129168
4587580916
5580323151
4695130185
5697109146
2022420191
5631971221
3162270392
0170331991
9431471991
5778578851
9190991901
2629231292
9383278392
6066610126
5129721711
8122005211
4440540440
3210933033
2443131443
3129543100
8442567563
2240270093
3420119626
3419719122
8178414448
9670196679
7870118181
6804338647
7976999769
8876183067
9676948138
7870198964
9378118240
7870963596
1501005101
2250828058
5135445151
0255303508
9487334479
2257362374
9131398849
9200312420
2057818662
9505475332
8968140987
7995123564
8694310547
8923378614
8025142947
3225953235
7960979090
9992111181
8654333836
2058602006
3354331447
7416491977
6407647818
7440666285
7304300401
3340334440
3212636372
4308638438
7444444444
6357335573
2720234825
6815667105
5634573025
2452178500
0959413125
5589393605
3772037120
8885078805
4546614565
6462264423
4897198444
7600000607
5234454934
1716377313
9009190000
9006124090
9816126363
8807153937
5639032350
4097082928

The puzzle

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

6345492567
8186553910
8172116540
8132450815
9443962209
6473334443
8185181158
9342443949
9196419448
8332988332
8520705872
4877044771
5657975979
6112811112
0651777671
5650948845
5120906409
9857815582
5550068179
4577869206
9329151503
2856375100
4782865400
4604469400
3187450851
0808990800
1161165191
7004070540
0900804098
9497959453
2344444233
4476764714
4744724746
1317711071
7138717830
3311411736
2558604773
2517041243
4953447733
7748964731
0326733636
9455040054
1606866812
0778077807
7493334473
0456360382
0378526518
9428038727
9398786753
0653035122
3905172876
5200965540
5675864575
7684840645
9985149916
5085110055
9603133906
3295455924
0574170511
7980889939
0999812607
2468228637
8516911608
0627211604
6297010937
1733712637
1119911709
1777101797
8729928934
0119010697
4280495125
9226398928
2606058124
9675087998
8804235129
1551717175
4224245224
8828988598
9797935979
1828198128
5557795067
1213182113
1115005116
7765657766
5240334005
4289097117
4555055113
6446805017
2616784116
2308600005
4871162635
4986320695
3670331998
0876358658
4604980787
1076373673
3807378733
8603688830
4984185194
0171919197
1044751352
1991936353
8312416793
1763411745
5764614390
5165114685
1413441357
6662926943
3740030340
7974951794
3749051869
7879683570
3598819849
3586913166
5412873876
1666113166
6664446456
8680751870
2575229579
6677473846
0667666006
2272627624
5914095500
8880380083
6146515661
6867329648
6967316619
6286939360
0147039036
2180511276
8764449020
3034129334
1760142001
8023472330
4761099075
0913191330
3363662370
7252272025
0118505001
9429949024

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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