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:

7826540230
5804250825
2507155780
1597124526
5327507149
2391138139
1004110004
7828088887
5563535566
6827282662
3366226293
0500055100
5851618546
0999390663
7374336357
6014690153
5349956100
5143430203
6901110607
3464832393
4356666364
3158153554
9094990990
2973823332
4408330404
4958302491
4378134722
9458696074
2178654411
4896952618
8867273741
7987976734
7415985068
8765185042
2123856744
2327373502
0006085082
5166156141
6666686735
7674474764
3674994696
0725455074
2447644546
2694029699
6589558585
2575548531
3657942115
6487945593
6697488976
6684902017
5787777787
6967887986
0895800080
4070204420
9830339985
4780329623
5777879823
4880246077
6760780188
5387228243
8347905684
1348711518
9815724149
9638390356
8265365693
8208777072
9348948999
1935354135
1065655606
9817488718
5592734301
8621572554
5562493055
5982468227
8982980002
8980558895
5129725572
2559424512
2981449921
9662999996
0109101993
7829892817
5757007539
7328262382
6618778861
7505271961
1230802812
5689107982
9742478982
0398403331
9085385950
9075292755
6337979376
8218686886
3087555095
9088329113
3288344154
3235615430
9017803829
9377613328
9593999953
4446144144
4730808837
8987668897
1392199712
9492169469
8340512182
8433955742
9990859156
4547138472
4844710894
5564115088
8042725846
7893519447
8234296036
5744717144
0050990580
9861916896
2885525488
0993949038
9195599959
2612442214
5152015855
7640847848
3709997039
3605501965
9190368320
3699584838
2152877214
3742544422
9064470224
8008935494
9025483420
4925295199
9370850499
2444335424
9466990694
5333973159
5559755795
5112881249

The puzzle

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

9873937304
2673950896
7615212488
6579261100
8279763816
2585955559
8846288222
9879698929
7213007327
2676727766
5686568265
4944444149
1111414621
9949434298
4048771074
2683431691
7892041128
1712144548
8523764295
5923661298
0834333862
9592180669
4599730685
7251920582
6175459685
3865553686
7237220575
1031130143
8020860862
9192929919
1761845905
4938309895
9908321416
9021896330
4711506244
9908598954
7721377317
9095600966
4061964100
1212821118
4959514171
3843509749
0857658735
5863797176
5843709031
4843334484
3442742742
8457667747
8943557835
5869989588
7409599420
6120099303
7300419274
0477216220
0262818030
9080998070
1661216224
2029229500
9193999233
9293390320
7299188427
3749241537
3791566266
7394191044
1339586282
4729372249
3341833234
3139833199
7791171711
1294592511
9014910091
2474774242
2627774962
8800071078
6089796078
1183674272
3594174062
7045594248
5260279098
0076170071
0314144162
5558011105
0350820105
0945321308
2661414395
3969737968
3333024303
1119913190
5004540539
1821521455
8618290670
8945775411
8042678086
8949601128
8912582464
8642554565
8948584885
8983796339
2677277626
8015681000
5072292010
8512637959
4977548652
8807092074
9897698715
1039337916
9658598659
9394593045
3133737714
7424242472
0231258261
8791701013
3667193932
6667795842
2791162362
3293799933
3641165644
2735272323
6017211701
8867222866
8265006062
4209549290
9550669950
7709229797
8640774300
7509723400
8209031997
8269652850
8260579560
7245444028
3259612253
9475109563
6270910806
9314652302
5730639506
5500130531
9895679806
0500000556
5556525262
2113212303

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