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:

6063332303
6610561616
3845543558
6918116111
3868777687
6060162481
3615578870
6963502867
6898550969
3610784489
6167046159
9432229401
6115062187
9153460065
6356783969
2135731715
2437444777
9316000466
7165275772
6153313661
7710608506
4137334508
5049628561
6136020232
9033309369
5746356376
6169661666
4013333103
9839009330
7010270019
6722422476
5301773527
8261981868
4186146116
6926112616
8326705252
8102799632
6301089253
5221166831
8121436460
1109534239
2475520334
0515400304
3814294447
1632450209
9995595409
3392950239
4240220247
0871707142
3644464334
1037604104
8402201004
5327346702
2225246803
2633618752
8821118113
0228038402
4004006004
8663631856
7844948789
9584041501
5396058786
9685080295
5485063032
9538745814
0736777706
4431444454
2598095502
5385953558
9686586586
5396696966
0592352500
0200025000
5336363366
1596119651
0302100047
1596337569
5592005969
1306605132
5346600968
8846694863
8135535158
4624734876
6712272316
1202113202
8804293362
1476092818
8806734883
2446132856
8442632853
0921418772
8754089731
7324479972
4282659762
7468816722
1761116762
7539759707
8014180174
1413114231
8292958922
5720844161
2740390986
8775875176
5777315102
5738309703
2772332727
1338838813
8725424055
5870308050
6744979466
4790790451
9747406731
8991652242
9040752658
9735789307
9938399393
2095660022
8730707903
4721417414
1041711770
5270960733
5879261391
2269128731
6884104283
9089104768
6870990808
9289189299
2678222222
0027550577
5263465527
2590513526
2008546124
2303244976
6500336915
2390527887
1330555853
2000505252
9693434699
6508404645
3352233335

The puzzle

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

0848415512
5759475441
7718021803
5310625992
0448386900
7429559547
3357375335
7740808707
0498448950
5818685866
0861707767
3390096030
6241886264
8070388777
8321712732
6261349316
8271713764
3271442296
3371340865
8371721851
2994353181
0534315480
7934886829
4655353977
8534744849
2257337223
8537858878
0934333303
7795755779
4955949059
1647502039
1546317850
0184178942
0544334509
0910386991
8614514465
0947887070
4459144419
1584313374
0140704010
4278773215
4867513888
2330106485
7986108205
2675496985
6511996105
1831113218
4187413482
8888808880
5955555955
4335512316
9397679440
4245190413
8244344626
9315186953
6235535533
8914664961
4360844700
9094110990
9245339323
4127333580
1635446688
1539137980
0611137983
5013637580
7757537570
4698446988
6637368337
8343343583
1683887161
6624380302
0226450570
8838587578
0809089006
7397050840
9511159010
5573303579
0864087840
8838057308
8182270812
8400700548
0473904994
4688788768
7028182881
6200555202
6420747375
0438993380
0628576009
8680505865
8403161732
1527900255
0433375608
9288495605
6151072604
2690670924
8097998904
0275570258
4440675604
5066600695
5998595528
4157947691
0257970877
0527277474
1154500159
1556327454
1752351735
0297330300
9536253552
4126944414
4957598759
7388939334
5428122962
7729249304
3214540332
1965830911
6445778964
2747247712
7533735375
9999999939
1220220501
9344339474
5598999587
4195858148
2336886235
6454556476
4788899148
3660556178
0904198885
4491339134
7750399475
6147932594
9042552572
5472311270
8423712704
9765656607
1712152717
1011011630
4646636644
7632161572
8028282209

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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