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:
9835455594
6816998661
3098993409
4232933999
3838944074
5035921496
9042652060
4295948262
3838629235
6188786771
9279137735
1477431777
8057414737
7367776721
7715517757
5533395335
8759785779
7776334677
6418181761
9315355135
6244846282
6849118814
6162304309
6349112055
6844179361
8415172049
3245308878
1545811615
3343670795
3095604850
1043548228
3445534554
1401641648
3393133339
6037670360
3545843485
6863896883
4486484536
8558498548
9557979385
8249074888
5025494583
7038296585
7608923588
1969599581
1808801848
5679995478
4959555964
0909999400
8765051978
9879755478
6242899348
6538158304
7357190818
9938633939
6601266686
5908898558
7818998717
7946989803
9608898673
6808943871
5878991008
5808635180
9892555529
7143914131
1474477711
3765115663
9128549636
1778121379
3728464409
9166180740
1794444635
3597425893
8886119174
3858416879
5088928981
5568998855
8086448806
3098440290
9857656988
9397199177
7261332316
2695090999
0733443040
0503750733
2570722413
7893711012
2330328801
2231754478
7395345374
5530212508
1818889816
0100110730
3863557638
2402859500
1112319793
1515577506
4143819833
0736959893
7797014511
1749054517
6656859588
0249057112
4554553488
1521117112
8908059802
6486454628
7776222567
0659059151
0788222787
8436042375
0638501884
5531535555
8282882128
0408580854
0659255559
0758058587
9039303495
6815865481
9246686427
3322353226
5982053486
9607653411
5742313226
9158556281
7271788487
The puzzle
Given the above hint, what famous landmark do the numbers below refer to?
7311171311
6162161610
1922169012
4909994090
0277891660
3806869612
5300204011
3200861352
9145100060
9697887969
2617472846
8143744748
5328353288
8127346204
2657822215
9146777347
8397308558
8618865795
7691149891
7894138231
5132124064
7190588965
3192111943
5090505959
6934733349
6171871116
7831131811
9386176511
6588160077
6585840380
5974181172
6372117323
9538151399
5009305009
9384888894
6955959755
0316325658
6719121653
1487411238
4685211217
7777111717
8882888258
3060004903
3293525393
2545625654
7222552499
6445861688
6119134555
7443563613
3429138243
7222474772
9040849944
6065155166
7143555311
9786447921
1086073379
5088359071
6785349995
6586156566
5721371374
1078487877
9985095880
5786655577
5203325033
9897884797
0185801558
7375133753
5887101618
7379196009
9855819487
1807815038
3395830502
6528682346
8022173858
6575372348
2437430897
1188770818
7775777357
9926632896
5836382345
0430163104
2728213250
8772637430
8833286856
0312891457
4661516445
5175881457
3636737166
5257827858
9593093230
0600000660
7006001708
2202266207
2151516152
0659016800
8724806757
3930006207
0092260167
7300660766
1379368900
1343783184
3099882138
5398305988
3399339333
5576878505
7093229922
7348273882
1719444111
3838103034
9928380329
6828359565
6928100005
4728332844
6586165685
6978494477
7838286382
3828484834
2418868056
9638376554
4615852383
4418127484
9433139301
4936396939
8435845588
2618886882
9019399191
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.
Comments
Big Ben
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.
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.
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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