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:

8440967434
5672123063
9705614470
9670687768
4340129371
9180919100
8692222289
9402124115
4574647666
5345655563
7882666666
4105605606
6915010641
6943566694
1615771711
1815564199
6915528110
7982540130
7133575343
4943516085
4763036300
8475044547
9026060299
2621826886
1084991934
4086925188
2625075049
2724010380
4425092762
2453095884
8308998160
5103867005
4183966271
0083978448
8513741330
0508555580
5073930355
8383583838
4112741276
5980988098
7101771827
3235225230
4927409247
6767136817
1165757166
2293436810
0803725267
1519176887
3520977127
4999051240
3882299384
4330024389
0541184744
3356884436
4387094456
8446994769
8586881456
4384894384
4611118146
2832229389
4147267184
9552571580
9874644101
2804689752
2577181695
9290390923
2752885254
4844644446
2107110021
9571212752
2464517654
5969786754
9393207657
0318823834
6969632658
2747117774
8582282657
2805827058
3333333634
6032006302
3757007005
1596765955
4075404455
1104501151
4513916315
4194520170
4174534946
1570730525
3797061414
1005545748
4474524507
4334747371
1115165191
1810088051
6771771272
2390074291
7997581292
8475275192
2963181972
4453348571
2871703422
3010434417
5259234316
4255379117
6009691312
3376734417
9272979302
0040004077
4223231426
9119997119
2430692587
2622216554
2728994507
3529311180
4147092557
1919391130
4847282247
1814884184
9158795287
6616616554
9415391879
0452332034
9052379663
9451383092
9492924666
9410999910
1062322666
1995959999
3757535777
0250331022
2153151512
7512121112
3023223331
0520255552
1705977795
3525141937
2093284079
0753256904
1702195274
0555236714

The puzzle

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

6992582593
7073000379
5902290265
2282048202
2220550642
4926250273
0476670292
6558350269
5101240269
5719152545
7797597599
6222262727
0071001681
0566566500
1151118156
5542816791
6320061520
6077916750
9875392191
9021338156
4433266256
5461915251
4689416815
9907084818
8809255516
6119156916
8812080261
6411115458
5815565815
2055225503
7506679710
3929685502
1053180680
7540436600
8142832628
7077777500
0602200628
6717936719
4542285642
2722882684
8413540052
8228555028
2921495908
1285272026
2148878801
7000778808
9216050926
9989895891
8896880946
5554045052
8774787147
3244432234
0344093604
4692444626
4943999433
6610899404
7787532633
7862333627
4760532244
6548733645
2485042647
2367368622
1406683652
3035863757
5560858157
7793957696
2876268722
9927742297
5513563157
2226282622
3336853803
4416889267
5248769560
0946520665
3336528111
0426770226
4956569499
5330330032
3618811188
0346868063
1713344303
7728232881
0498076017
7728560133
5893386756
5411351443
7798089070
0823222228
0278802027
1128311325
4021440444
5229125221
3829882868
1613666633
7480177711
4411102509
4871174816
1680106781
4811108079
1220169129
4683288249
3177333717
4183111118
1736617366
8911717189
4983348344
4711816490
1977799378
8173638298
3776115248
2277279020
8287888572
6775967739
7470444017
1515110185
2150214077
3356419777
4161974589
6628779790
4996147732
4785235948
6173057648
0219115644
4340957778
1008419786
3766737628
5428854182
4115515445
3225739726
1044001944
7225662572
4759999579
3627323176
0240212304
8385535783
2520293374
4265290774
8249693773
0597362574
0721112776

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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