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:
8950259928
2335553233
3319793977
7701310870
2915588511
3319594067
5939751928
8734165033
8251213559
3229478569
8953364897
1994460202
3559346583
3948558458
1599399599
1627464974
8504224820
9253325925
3100510850
4246222624
1568353665
9613779177
1208744132
4596558807
3647705461
1666737488
3217254164
2295265397
0711331405
0504718199
8476617525
9235339422
1554545501
1111561315
9949947999
8850118105
4681182581
7616121060
4611106904
3662145204
8317131311
5616616161
4822222228
3969269299
7631117314
1677297126
4544114874
8588778785
7985715978
1874271525
9310617971
9347598984
3387571778
7287625875
3333353903
9963996633
6641610646
1938392311
4831690321
7468193612
2838453301
7401390301
2520192327
5030730190
5772984948
1460558540
7010450598
4039130134
0577770597
9445450940
8555858154
8988784798
5494383823
0542585076
0540050003
5834529562
5542355385
0834444840
7040900499
0837930700
5493559555
9085318093
1388333281
2212212221
3084338049
0095438289
3047143083
6762418063
1387632271
5856718245
1609769671
2960750617
7784359635
1464857631
7777757671
4491419974
6657160617
3516369135
2222228221
4649945045
2036045975
7435630941
4308239951
7045335045
1714947971
0954004951
4494349443
5585585255
6624424648
0771770817
7855895608
3332772133
3748490600
3619675138
5088320198
3593623138
5907720648
3820320538
6045764457
5494989435
9912191392
6186290557
0901020432
2595420452
6917060577
3088366438
The puzzle
Given the above hint, what famous landmark do the numbers below refer to?
0562155262
8254258248
2550502025
2410313923
2553128481
8214366777
4280330009
2564191316
2453207739
4744467468
1818881888
4777434272
1551555211
7775257874
7726455881
3031671818
6266734405
9367331868
5750255272
8488484440
2768464776
0538553335
5468348773
4938411557
8964348339
5967543469
8468370411
9506009869
3300202236
6632276293
7400774062
6419272099
7072709892
2240172263
5529324632
7987472333
0803322906
1823860010
8072378395
1813362842
8212338883
7804308048
9823032880
1041814801
0891882899
2595659252
7805668878
9192999929
3578133771
3161900733
3162557105
3501658541
7798554488
9595582034
0312907963
0362624135
7373229764
4372940165
7812999229
4372633473
7323227231
0213660331
1265462544
3284033494
8045793061
9544344070
8369302869
3369393899
8574448847
9244224244
5388058808
8045004544
9469896689
2721521217
2257525202
2077997707
9777525179
6865969336
3779523315
2865941383
9257939115
7484146561
3463503474
6480126991
6070560931
7764774767
7070177001
3980393339
0464060041
6203563250
6882228222
1090800010
2181515911
0208110110
6082544167
2080469097
0781256313
6281507004
2880038256
6995289405
0308388074
9255639405
9266099051
5955999505
3888139185
3509535091
8781188871
4550757454
2598855589
4022322402
5803050830
3380110863
2003307911
5896014423
8302800806
2622579429
3306825652
5260203402
4260676155
4707538237
4750500615
5460555006
4617262217
4253254044
8566586665
8708686608
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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