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:

2137535244
7926715710
9907479643
5609838754
8762054340
5585535850
4163814368
2477279244
3333653613
4713736743
5038740603
6860890035
1591945383
4094290025
5460890333
3803990683
0005080005
8338348133
7430395043
2332840382
5101958758
3678754789
0457444043
1147746753
7038035743
8842338848
4455454045
7474242753
8385735887
1054616054
8748684764
0006010606
8720888210
7447944799
1922194192
6458498160
6843294192
6237044690
0791914206
9534210722
2661726127
7002024720
5100670716
9260290662
2192193112
5848273620
8146820612
5663226762
1494623922
4534593726
5286082260
5682588662
6244141142
5128665558
4735737372
6146580420
6246565260
4628107076
6234587169
8235184163
4220542545
6914341531
3914343133
1309610911
5713775577
5210387093
5709983009
6319387439
4714633293
1324317918
7077560557
0230303093
6788879868
3487337458
6443353674
4968033678
2661563458
9258669093
4090366074
7800057077
2100001010
0178811887
1954555155
0026424200
8509330700
0179563313
0014300057
0108806528
2109810457
0500592549
3162882286
2614962194
4114741717
2083770320
0164550866
4684764506
2064764033
1014940263
0164800835
0114991093
3338340338
2141772441
8981819958
0415615106
3553113592
2115019992
9132840528
0930842598
8608215108
4868615158
9339939933
8839588858
2199799019
8500300003
4782333828
8382548437
2893701700
9880998854
9102772045
2899317047
7087308765
9877635200
9763646837
7063298911
6048983851
1040311021
9067699976
7873447333
6088980888
9933299999
0737207589
8650283966
0456573570
5759569055
1758321691
8412331524
0808688888
5756265727
1639299162
0657555706

The puzzle

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

8193611372
6677107079
7963207370
6440881579
4347417049
7211717322
2014010020
7047707549
6622921679
1011001067
5055705072
7250127017
1189011890
4450057430
1522952192
3408457110
3922316812
1364952892
5681557170
1357711012
3016663363
8864968864
3285035723
1989498949
9948594959
3018901744
8864969704
3255977901
8986428128
3245997287
6684867484
7535352375
2018327308
3212032012
2111192014
3964832314
5753297288
9074532374
8106722314
4528997085
9020992062
0353332531
7555776725
8892879218
6130556103
1366236261
5480456228
5519692068
8105079792
7145932005
4425141554
3860444888
9781998179
4178347743
0832738817
0768760611
2128754749
9820744268
3881369865
9162175319
4626949837
9624481578
5328777433
0326704824
4631920794
5368939966
0731939677
4511714557
9676878987
4624724622
7775575957
0074440077
4448638634
1894441698
0772331708
8173075697
1193745757
6810871901
5463430934
5641041904
0107777070
5689495649
6347067490
8303808800
6699996699
6303709005
0307857295
6397485815
6207978836
0149019608
7770276720
4554454104
1819660815
0303036010
7802770258
2504230700
9748230750
0593554228
2891966140
9280936800
5730447320
0180589624
1741374301
7827779338
1498636338
3340374330
4848489324
5530532501
6686676828
9773347738
7121253510
9281239267
2528477364
0670756264
0645257517
4663336664
5925555269
7773773337
1391737310
1717337571
0715000157
6026692760
9559009559
2676988697
0878118700
2594899107
0291498167
0801638559
8788690597
7430108660
5646419468
7177331765
7751017150
1426771426
9189918898
8603217460
8752411866
4613877195
6370371125
4058073428

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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