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:

9702855391
3255505323
6410038841
5759238382
1067259882
3668356823
2301001293
8852535782
9888958891
2225309322
0409967544
8088229881
7330613994
0328657232
2388387561
8437373733
0360222302
2384242424
2302923229
7028676818
0464868648
1625251622
2125112222
9945794415
6005350035
9425144890
0944314139
6965172176
9425352459
9123858081
0106516057
5344043105
9166961970
7773777357
2326332427
8831232957
0959947307
6369743957
9735934000
0200742125
4147441454
4284924928
7159555759
3161444114
4537554575
4137983536
4531433152
3154597772
4137360515
4187591402
8490661557
9490675159
7300820034
8544893586
6594983954
8300130183
9434943999
6594869468
1340634156
6690696666
7843118813
3677776335
3453233423
6635755655
8750151581
3657141833
6451140770
7650790323
7655758715
8730779269
2674250496
1065192858
8279998499
2400560869
1791454056
0446990064
4458858456
0979990999
8866992866
4144884198
5758775000
6707840220
3804761871
6008106741
3054964160
3005130305
3204502527
6038939068
5857785755
0704664776
4538194382
7250761150
0231757685
9531443476
7530701963
0539750750
7031777770
9280722908
4658255488
7560407542
4154691439
2838804638
5622806505
1841881528
2068697597
1190991499
0600006088
6600586605
5570504567
4454347534
6366566665
8313031201
7059759777
5949694956
2252552525
2942748494
6012766161
8069082807
5049772345
9352057715
9131539159
8813333331
3076074600
9568118968
4831531188
4511160172
9036582499
4510093747
4563058395
4531032650
9589140152
1836047691
9939849958
4882147592
4730657759
6577776752
8874847798
1395959151
5050770592
9992842689

The puzzle

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

4792598108
5097542092
4516967931
3596056939
0556168647
7011555510
4758048484
5916166519
0797007080
3577979359
6235236252
2907770927
6413963365
6113881363
6370936936
2213924731
6313969392
6975728549
6190887582
6413987861
0584665460
4810888888
3074007063
8002302000
3448131441
3070185381
3008827611
5512190991
8572373913
4804852767
0105206199
8968702042
3874942052
6286902166
2505099868
8995599158
4400444040
0092802896
7366702763
5197656192
1946414661
4865568365
2982222228
0325425442
4373553335
4922505189
0966264812
4366172804
1342554587
0982448804
6100010466
4288483642
9341193821
9006660695
5543354833
6119053635
1183210662
6573880846
8347484692
0149063829
8988927989
0150017505
8255882582
9190073909
9292992526
7401012929
9730873586
9504523521
4220992582
5020883525
7190950596
1867171037
4434771942
4906201017
9574251652
1555551052
0726708697
0090601946
5533141536
5779970597
7386667022
7546349575
7383393062
0516684345
0586385402
4543354353
0670464606
1586858358
6408340308
7383677833
8838883778
6066602621
8335335455
5599339539
2255555652
5393052558
1233655031
8667435775
9889082725
6761235772
4355063045
8575595558
2588268252
3623313264
7374793347
9778813357
7119313267
3232365245
9908613251
0229963554
2672726799
2020320330
5138515333
2558885025
5257172451
5202075453
4158982783
2828375425
8088310335
9225422750
8472727444
4776556577
9051050595
5546666546
0235535236
9542745580
0436756752
4072712281
4276502842
6236517380
1229229922
4101611114
2724927244
0318000302
1809779198
1304966071
1124794671
0218616088
1804063403
0201118884

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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