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:

6718206263
6866443868
3726309458
6077993253
9225410293
2232910293
0668606668
3236243263
2821429418
4355664850
2147712713
1128831822
7934377349
8817775148
9199971951
2002871953
4049377251
4308331149
0244571949
3324477949
9214416944
1410440144
2672336722
8482004888
6846116818
2272343266
5414008714
2484467222
8414498864
6646016869
4047547405
8300308638
7499924529
8268707862
2331116322
1878214362
4052746809
7842107335
2887908632
5457404437
7459706190
0161700548
6491471625
6483712541
3934528417
3199535159
6454656546
0931891813
7483775737
7164746647
2633723337
7582024000
5379399797
1335333335
7881177811
2335182091
6572113574
5385344845
2533369119
1382370266
7681997553
2350980683
7056400538
7642970112
8680989168
2650956666
8621585255
8540888858
6552456555
7386972969
9740121662
0465323595
3732021471
2158293472
9156634595
3352533525
0609096910
5599521595
1176222771
4464294462
3536543586
2278272434
1188815888
5259009552
7723337782
6424879432
1000492532
2478942484
1000645532
6966572852
3734171543
4244024040
7172120147
4097942974
9912191862
7671071142
8538940547
0243761940
0961540543
0321420864
2858423580
4412867742
0527053146
3705212542
6890852186
9964919740
6222662182
2232253882
2515225541
0606090766
6813603403
2780911622
3133202280
6949903220
0314612503
2222912298
9033303393
3088193182
0202202503
4146161420
3473130114
8350252784
4679542421
6846634830
0399672880
3113371431
5185454851
4401330714
1292992720
4884649683
5997199741
3771273772
1794898979
4429444444
1790377039
4791389190
5992171792
1799433830
5471851474
1797453123

The puzzle

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

2752053503
5003499006
4299493013
6799776700
2841477713
3933790773
5665576550
7050657006
5511113515
0090003070
7917671797
3507252305
8963494188
5481718544
8488777884
7467748714
8481611130
5511296900
8418712453
7461156210
0226592420
7482642389
8081557188
8885215959
8326581658
0411111111
8014550354
9882292228
4327524274
7256622622
3311693553
3151095157
8075730811
3171737480
8079760591
8379730337
3615636666
3671979739
3175773777
2071077221
2973335991
7025244996
2883342293
6961346563
8018475286
2192555281
6662336263
5175771561
0449044390
9559955996
2648336264
7612666122
6585757685
1135000380
4210999410
1638766083
7615699977
6518049800
7634316348
2242049672
3380730691
3169177321
5530117318
6995130302
7523473290
1111110191
6399390392
5511179315
7622407624
2322233200
4581924061
5200877150
4788113626
1584128338
1288728694
1231933319
1788178187
5602828686
5528775571
4184344184
7270693592
1780473892
9872090578
8823080501
0305413802
1198199198
0228070822
2710383172
0510510504
5828253528
8833284213
2200103214
2020212280
0003330033
7379957922
5461834010
2184514582
0210534280
6497553213
5720680283
3606403316
5070517296
2490410266
6360017284
9945213086
9170717019
6956993296
6388819386
4199717964
3030030260
5909301953
4435623546
9008797870
3577880775
7479797424
5388697720
2266083740
5468220575
8137897775
8822321528
2588504470
3848527804
2686596024
3643663148
2041363086
2582552585
2691561169
2046303454
6313361331
3048668008
3433664436
2172795721
1410118940
1271120113
9553555934
6010295436
2641864926
2719165716
2356058916
5747015453

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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