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:

4138800440
7130906536
0488302589
8185360207
4435908240
7438938489
9188999888
4625826808
0620360063
0132911020
3718013703
9178118497
8830484438
1913411114
2792179112
3718125230
3732483502
3710407788
4993455411
8813119437
7675857645
4884950337
2606757944
7655051397
9497850407
9911190914
4565651647
5349350395
0230090302
5379737495
2383376332
5655963594
8525328535
1293331921
7917791706
2711071332
3459160995
0392198325
9365893394
5688673522
2923023320
1461221142
6259099064
1432884321
8252333283
2231367811
1952039810
1952832890
1442242381
8229351974
1825418424
1195952367
1191926180
4525323319
3571341040
3685355686
1971411071
1526666651
6196777666
2824944942
7376476671
7846447784
0523202532
5200626502
6220332002
5576384848
7243431314
7323322537
7840390015
7308693410
1171176111
5756756879
0726767890
3942942973
9999396938
3006896918
9432896990
2602446912
8106966833
6752496971
7777777674
9969643962
8598052089
8833139861
2513114635
6077277072
1466457861
0076448665
1615857874
1186047081
2878228887
2659779706
0324222334
1743233711
9162191192
0648765123
2673774682
0174257438
0368730700
6168797423
4674094793
9422228703
1786943794
9708298703
5459494309
0313998301
4144444163
4999998799
2073623760
0008990803
3835815838
0552205622
0820810284
2303393031
5401154710
3819895832
7700260728
6219855712
5813150018
8192910624
1113111369
5445544055
5689965894
5899569585
1502552860
0771459864
4870661055
8197014550
3617639394
7215365064
9000003900
2272722177
1121881210
1110661016
8247774219
5214273217
5788074006
5066123000
9799701870
7005121010

The puzzle

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

6354283220
9752333027
2344568007
9782300318
9788505686
2738572257
1359551493
3972337923
6794244942
9681588888
3314343331
3933339376
8359838395
5052590225
4786776204
3682633331
9522093925
0243679221
1775693295
6984876374
5677609928
7443719948
4878007640
8972387942
1588637717
8588119148
4999034940
4794717944
6206200626
7117181717
9172559795
7989459695
2568258732
6905619824
1513210285
5854558782
1968118698
3491918934
9525550295
1393319323
0950959009
7878187784
3697067776
9511515151
7851353155
7958109721
3592369118
7571582600
3557581198
7851056065
3294569887
8609535882
2482036992
1029259097
8079831912
5811335818
8166667682
0188261082
5799953997
2709909627
9333933196
8166696518
1437879183
5596696556
3552332503
2599473193
6277333513
7952339156
7532776286
2460593593
3656169515
1199131981
7559767509
9844828944
5665552665
2168237615
2755921619
8196458665
0332968900
9438332565
4343178132
2617865618
3584045121
6257365611
7053835623
8383338028
5939225193
4111164111
0228525182
8433478634
1643720592
6697706665
6427369718
6447526134
6501582716
1627772112
0343773344
6501505195
6454846548
3392022323
6730188870
8495371842
2805054042
2930958052
2665278072
2872778872
6660551060
2228704872
4886581547
1162118362
4494949842
3603502365
1601120119
5605500650
5755755572
4220655160
7831590812
2390445645
5562540562
0817859849
5840508722
3572049510
2372153098
2540527734
3940543053
9950595559
2872008727
5542752244
2390099892
3644246244
5117574147
1478052697
5064632799
1371754440
4389834010
1175155157
1219232019
7500749790
4749779447
4249484294

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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