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:

9515119532
7668668741
6649495694
7709779007
9906999465
1162499542
9073169532
0801769967
6647779607
9574469092
0426122523
5518829423
1143768077
7917020474
5573852174
3215353523
3117227173
1518880151
6969969097
4243222434
3525073719
0221583709
3078581861
6192846709
7603674449
5777773705
1421140211
4494434749
9936171309
4846686461
0676777666
0906506599
3101919113
0900999909
0185716501
0976501892
0105926663
0185885656
0606909235
0905532317
1004821615
9474425621
5404853969
4978922931
2470987784
9430777074
2970442722
2833883382
4408558480
5044904539
5558351723
1412291860
0199650770
2314428123
9491296362
2211131321
7912706172
1008898180
3302050823
5575551765
7850573560
4247432474
0010160411
6828638862
0300330677
9710278470
7528570867
9688538477
7044633473
4292163472
4654545448
0505050353
5552553525
0501511005
4949113493
5214811443
9186815523
9152113393
2075815373
6566940005
1035110130
9786486570
3490183114
3432704517
6122013570
0071990174
3311383110
0081113880
0870006207
9559994571
9447389524
0416418182
2220140181
3668010101
0884278181
8287778828
2211220181
4483384113
0792889702
5581515554
8492796193
9112838295
3259699003
8393296067
5244696102
3244992843
8561995168
3226236202
1619818097
6866889086
3134994343
0683268228
6928999499
2082822820
1815958151
2088902316
2984943202
2114848597
6929983742
0835884890
7146061677
7141217712
3326436665
6563136663
9403777737
3343103614
7141070448
6346148597
7161047510
6561542613
9539907429
3086103126
4533517036
6945803837
8155633437
7755577875
3133113136
8788837897
2116585021
9040009426

The puzzle

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

7987087741
5949775750
7543833446
5802713183
7607544433
3547737577
8933793339
7891511915
5982008825
7607868884
9365551386
6611886177
9777777789
2129515892
9778976899
9061077196
2507881874
4698986177
9009251897
3506686887
3563433494
4103568195
4103422334
0334489811
0104520570
4705555554
0113400311
0134449414
8900280980
3563866338
3835836773
4863788423
2553259408
7168588447
1967039734
7473736847
8582488425
9199319738
1784758714
0224326703
7726027767
5082752728
4909797947
6201760242
5340110314
6221703672
5241422685
4982745269
4042736570
5721157474
4763662492
4799599488
5600702727
4663360481
5963129735
2463733777
4603306343
4799097379
5760111056
1952691995
2297299275
2752004722
8383538685
4744756427
7266776728
5190496228
5456209680
9170099482
1012058288
7251498777
4627777446
4882088348
1079519009
2997499927
8094398099
8084341111
1929452988
1092768230
4084017913
4986437067
2298880921
0100212001
7060017066
6666538565
0300556009
3390610006
8114216061
8154688909
3366138900
8543450001
4689664793
4262669423
5422452424
4696929476
3433333634
6311054694
8441229726
6416522438
9160133424
5672129693
0806355912
9872910480
8407953053
4876922334
4836926545
0572337527
8814383838
4674994446
2737675637
4406500606
2675857668
0296490099
6013206331
2668169826
8573573838
6263182770
8698708343
6678292967
8073426681
8076409227
5888656388
9851518945
0350308753
1326525216
4743373745
5489058745
6402658283
6313125985
2089658717
8938605716
7030573350
1553838555
6043868468
5490779895
0350999090
1530987970
0030743616
5073890470
6450800879
5350535028

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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