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:

4684572559
7240399220
9769679565
8858694218
7453299065
7575777595
9564699265
4424502459
0999994058
5400045010
3333883193
9178979184
8361346381
9447545579
1015195131
1504693191
9554195181
5427385681
6877996131
1486885181
4424724424
2934849382
8828688688
2811211582
8523752337
4834766887
2824863198
4824675363
8824296621
4822839847
9325550006
3555535916
5104550090
2064250006
0879250040
0440550046
4450545105
6606565810
2991950916
4111538451
0899509198
9632999639
4625757546
0071401100
7832113272
7822962991
0671932690
9892152586
7092193242
0622028195
9226898262
0532030525
4824442448
7782979728
6288558623
0236567464
7236474340
8222576373
4822019565
0832555609
2634983009
3334577945
3333505895
4336646503
2634589266
1433911419
2491599222
6634964624
3336636333
1792571759
9092329922
7719595775
5504356004
8780407877
4968114611
5769161495
7799353182
4904990044
5592311847
5782379808
3149345915
9303463315
0008180089
5994309929
5782075919
9700773907
6997969927
5554345035
8899688699
0043000310
2720299377
4996352286
0766891287
6596796997
1169456227
2222171228
9995999995
6266162216
1729392387
7692956297
2560858805
0898009900
2670426447
0042202402
6078771077
2090742795
0142231273
2568079482
6868006366
0540747236
7756077770
3815771311
5219455492
6663463036
9582992299
9663747671
9786722414
6557415749
5762935011
9212981738
0128649382
0168645863
7098914633
6268699989
7179365169
6278378772
7139339333
7105615159
0829908889
2068666026
9540269915
7931377044
8632068324
0591043462
9637785882
5692391369
0538358880
8127722772
9541009955
7930973939

The puzzle

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

5986198438
8322098537
7094285236
1409495598
6888078297
5575115557
4539349537
7877871258
6326212336
9548998498
4362697294
6152497989
5350915973
4191798374
2894011584
8555515580
4485947298
8823393283
7783728375
4919991914
1216993533
8030111558
3710783519
8412151549
8716347741
8130778379
8016988116
0252422222
1718171111
7460330643
5955505359
8514775818
8888888888
8666768776
8011118210
4249218819
6470718859
9940815378
7065880218
2417688788
7058041223
3020103605
2764193289
9861468783
4424494706
3239393289
3165443635
1031801583
0370708703
6222224226
3438164931
0609810239
7313693919
3339992724
0303106485
7630175611
7919696916
4378637333
0804990088
3513818138
9265595027
5692565992
9679199167
0018168081
8221118128
4322695927
5011769967
9094499027
8244569087
3053309021
8281223202
2461623262
2332233052
8955229562
2355968614
2475177122
8956658965
2333932349
6161262661
1382992139
1450379695
3400065806
5053195236
5583343888
1840346691
1443134444
6552355252
7850008708
5000004000
3412842324
1176616753
6333393685
9707720709
6567667621
7044772604
6801896603
3172920607
6922022754
4538970623
1878163783
7776717627
4422242442
6111216210
4183168147
7797797527
4518412420
5000517215
5537516542
7557998547
1429818427
0143747074
4667947669
4589044050
7482888775
8315995139
7383926488
4483769484
5612991878
4382065856
7613724902
4513256460
9590651467
3640053326
5029017354
5587211884
5537751387
7982778327
8676617866
8444446864
0640113460
9535264837
0496719459
2492529359
2595287267
8042107932
6422116242
8343744833
2385234825
0592454955
5036505633

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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