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:

3983957757
9033515207
2872475711
9882270751
6595059713
1112751217
5336620653
7233715731
1371177713
6569369593
6750905566
4687988968
1267711166
5466963946
0404774047
0660968176
4806954416
5767914135
4704921625
4480760509
1419319941
6151752516
9428894488
9938033890
8187517517
1427729266
8188756643
9927726899
6119761000
8968048965
4744447044
2473423547
0070060004
8506605684
5556535655
9201833545
0043245644
3078245084
7458403445
8640535544
3636693562
7178287221
3443430480
0898668610
2566552106
5587492460
0513242260
1360483566
6170058506
5158568480
6332333692
1163151716
8844181846
7786707586
1818337138
8641051736
4407007546
0953254116
7123103136
4984887612
9899689976
1673679663
6020506526
3443363433
9090131309
6164639463
9214063576
3310863309
3496831979
0556036839
3111709102
9311975025
9311726150
4311486307
4614963076
9691771966
4504774440
9314393333
3321411161
4413944919
6870376886
4204880697
3714086893
9049600192
5773476793
1133174813
8837002783
0060106198
6400080697
0687770586
2149424244
0055550500
5042950027
0076506757
7738933377
7142566722
2055964519
5033995892
0036927910
0058992717
9641859310
5753740396
8643422866
5646494706
0306321711
0633333300
8723777233
2303732733
5941449469
3656866686
7597218005
6585286046
5515652069
6510651206
5346216362
6999191069
8266686246
3332754732
2500616305
2891282129
0776296766
3974156696
1447480166
8308970539
7300095681
9616595681
0700770736
7661666168
2939993992
7770587509
7327910958
2907554944
4902945290
0386303208
4982381303
0582992288
1982585922
9334838443
4306993864
2927329999

The puzzle

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

2053102325
5143633646
9091199979
0575355377
2258552522
2273361057
9275105408
0745118506
9058186526
9273352116
9952147776
5932868372
5925126426
0222158990
6235160021
7222992227
5257475557
6481546651
0932121035
9925129929
2244347732
1363613061
9800043803
8802000820
9199797919
7394897719
3351900862
2978717032
9012994731
2198803009
2265381857
4710165463
0840147311
3068162153
0018301281
8755373377
4760946436
0016700000
2868166186
3841773733
9398257268
3422559339
0366457133
8054494258
6603692159
5999192169
5959559253
3397897378
3883898873
2332253235
7918228177
1858588888
7262886828
6156666664
7375777373
7368765270
7178828206
7208724294
7868842433
6218714740
2005999520
5143553145
3113171335
3603148316
7075776540
1239473545
2396978545
9214159115
4751073745
9786649115
5079222586
4958082510
0766082648
3001982675
9414052172
4825152185
2222922926
2227772372
5240542500
6866882618
7035005850
3685812455
4765115251
7516635191
2150875151
1515515195
0059005490
3913134191
6255117245
0888075850
8855885888
8349994999
7363933373
6259656229
0643734427
7843922938
6269611943
7855671490
8369420914
8649830389
2124942421
6565776577
0505855705
0206600006
5346955949
6106788811
5145707442
5545953404
2240906027
6106917165
0503595915
3020285316
5211031415
5886231051
5515891945
3141331461
8998189919
4411184311
7777637076
5935995945
2941111212
5236437334
9044404094
1051611111
4457337575
5231181119
2244404776
1047413029
3256450967
1234601953
3554349642
6894485778
4137990740
5022409398
5816895742
9794990794
8389803798
4666049066
1100585610
2345949342

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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