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:

7676406078
5600079096
8656163551
0666267041
8356161649
7550775257
8652252252
8606486688
0276122622
9360036999
4608959048
1954039068
2054166064
8660776078
4571259078
7561556972
9799079009
5555550269
6446460444
1888915098
1760716777
8729999879
5346131514
0495494415
4511151141
5365147912
1491123601
0598467088
0719989402
4590162471
6782246287
5235665302
6906298602
9993109381
7503554302
8900855382
5416568283
5464108307
3272604387
2194606202
4517832493
0759346799
6365306715
2017736729
5538056711
7927131927
5515151911
2688002786
6586446465
9997796799
3090209099
0328929338
6472424344
3645136435
0049199941
3049987201
3370934207
0470205346
6090046344
0622964480
8834686837
8258999889
4831981439
7682788266
4780770870
8680765326
4738744152
4430948970
8230945297
7884775711
8653672261
1486936280
4545986975
8001486247
3160272044
3808332084
9090689160
9455005971
6246546245
5770575606
2292853812
4303307437
9599519552
9599010935
3999798379
7093090979
2857300957
6444158317
1715698532
6103697922
5126626661
1112332111
4687171764
4755252782
9387373333
5655162750
4125366781
1456363726
5325675937
4617362858
0691419419
9498299488
4521624421
8239791833
1367771136
9599708695
8699723835
8231961434
0221748599
9321764724
9222222294
3333929353
1122775112
8869889636
3063131402
0215879132
4782929332
0389979152
2971989794
6432221116
0913417207
6131416646
6884964243
8908094293
6648214476
7776797696
7265667208
6565114656
4444404244
6663466473
3062874864
7648390106
7050340927
7060979333
7589382590
7680978787
3662999662
7898387937
1516815166
1049304703

The puzzle

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

0013303011
3131713163
8302733020
0170000177
5735113337
5030705032
5101317310
3171711475
0000982807
5013115764
9932292615
9392692625
4419454326
0402392955
0710872379
4533374355
9229992926
0525550625
5754575175
2992292229
8003834850
4559545555
9222629246
9955290325
7515115570
7001495525
2939120551
5422190540
8799110550
6465145220
6714695653
6424990968
0133934455
8425930768
9583434855
3653335365
8328232628
3839498403
5883824958
0085990865
4334239651
5174241910
4517239911
1538557251
9754438631
2513119235
4777447417
6008030611
9300938990
1577091750
8846224485
9399619326
9809910489
3966797063
4277774725
5539877085
3444197324
9619217429
3017724325
2687514485
3030430643
1131373817
7033773838
0022208725
5755117552
3374437532
3359413558
3935013528
2572018807
7072877612
0563592409
1213377105
1611677120
8584506728
5483584857
2583532325
1223412242
8014668411
5421052123
0564335506
3691760772
1156014382
2653414739
3222014185
2332215139
5200712780
4554164155
5939115339
4222024012
1217711172
3732933779
0725332723
7472274722
1905200025
0102551119
1705304772
1705209466
1722362589
0712936291
7902916239
3797230750
1478298865
7058243194
3758521514
1080528045
3098779733
3089898388
1090501159
6478285788
7754884475
2166811055
8033918512
6221411321
4843918826
6780618806
5551111515
4011587051
1166615816
6031318306
6020009620
0591876514
4353250400
4591554843
6551107658
5553549199
6053553655
6593836549
5591155555
0554500554
4155241154
1538072240
1737658084
9936773400
9215688123
1236388464
8831333838
9916699116
2515992595
1726060032
7237777777

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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