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:

5949755599
3285252889
3288883888
4456754556
5845995985
3445705597
5295751180
3985984964
5958779434
5249841603
6130111113
0968060809
7273077170
5416955649
0980118800
5410180220
0233040286
0338031448
5488127497
0466027571
8400190826
4832530157
9961724866
7748494158
6171830126
8995594857
0433430064
0106000156
2908000029
6241424165
7851272532
3916031966
3508985885
7287008807
6339539596
3801524135
3201050048
6268228751
3837086594
3507042673
3619699191
5889798527
4369595499
2474024474
4911319113
4319780325
5319318278
5311864217
2681587731
4679575549
8024448284
1343000040
4976049994
7195669515
1873999498
1844984298
8794653375
1076063454
1024689963
4123606013
8276888882
5566066505
4367567347
5034504055
0244994950
0366547889
0334983010
4576996361
0266033213
8174575703
2255725717
8378737078
2342835842
6851696152
4245152741
0466235047
1123657017
8063230142
1668435711
1345896112
5628153280
4778024224
8773329013
8557131637
3923766512
8723733422
8659069855
5714017011
3588858388
4977147997
2762229219
7896829138
7143573137
9995241118
3940039528
7300730787
1571171516
9828129818
3830743728
1913199139
9384830954
3211397747
3074456917
3568633744
0439430949
5770957917
1910940919
4444946944
4684868447
3353733757
4309335062
9595555810
6455185560
1367326067
0351410617
1224115562
3434939047
7605650667
5128225813
2022882030
8087156291
9319673747
3761976912
9752776228
5699253361
6647776642
9595553995
4788873228
4333771341
7634334767
1533225113
1199186791
8277721847
2444098049
7758770587
8489695097
9938699747
6886971013
5789226099
2926271047

The puzzle

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

2226625664
3898873985
9584985964
3998994833
0238372330
0944495960
7068374664
3501674860
8720293733
8179475384
4309503404
9410880184
5496993494
3971497434
3200930030
4400947801
3200475996
3370811262
9390012685
3270867289
4933784359
1839284452
9202634451
7907614032
0653814499
3111314431
2722142712
2051035012
4424924094
0388980059
7987678786
1177116741
8888282898
8323328319
9924994529
6787898728
0407678586
3910782726
4536718499
9522982798
9622500175
9626751904
0226184182
9506191384
2502306471
9532773762
2002550222
9226886698
2606302066
2129129992
1645837410
8457735498
2914732954
8772938425
6555695825
0104331240
4475575604
2829828928
3849737895
3255392453
3119117933
5339525506
4378498063
0177152209
4318726813
0619997091
5378477774
3139193111
4877117148
6061706107
0195547974
9287597970
4503198746
3170347070
5685816980
8114199184
0086046030
9088998970
7177014770
9949647996
3800113107
7199191797
4339974309
9284080942
9543595453
9365694949
5677014703
3703914102
5354187902
7835793147
9964696966
5386446436
6125116256
8199181819
0635153019
0366142487
6139135207
8676156751
8165105250
9186623555
7333321377
3765665073
1139121613
9954592594
2225552535
8645092573
8106625513
6714625535
7450952975
1216261075
1653771353
5935434495
9333933933
1866551188
2247552234
2633962021
9963562945
5337585974
1350900988
1636420372
9775456242
0350220720
9798175053
9858375986
3334787158
6876776976
3730430033
5695393566
0858288880
9354644644
9591082380
4407973964
8138482993
1795782944
1256672933
7997971990
6644886463
9893969933
4282282247
8842282384

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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