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:
1411481114
8334330984
3683873868
1452115227
1310210824
8566015864
3728730217
9052480067
2203581514
5524913174
1566891420
1762907964
1582986308
1686916169
1569215957
5542828885
5559099055
5722722772
7737376437
4928332849
0406606794
9757557792
7125436434
4822396832
5758052899
8070176497
8277956892
8933503905
1691118961
4444470447
2628332686
2878092646
5579392409
6960408907
5602607967
2171407676
8441402815
6605575918
4719972901
5136854018
7427977942
4043854802
5511585911
0727872078
0113102913
5555335553
1931917991
1835331583
5535313552
7809833582
5038271403
1304615883
6646816503
4785437553
0007789706
9509705709
0305503055
1362919762
2906615751
8411749065
9400748902
4822389965
4053923096
7685288865
7325474375
6918001046
7465976499
7922988806
7678084932
7625499344
9675968808
7565433509
6782767838
9099989095
3233713372
9363595963
1802497873
8357195976
5401193333
1590914965
7005783862
3450110363
9756260238
2280905902
4757923950
9456799659
8181991881
2430724733
4796222790
3707177771
3549317841
0654304381
7551020102
5052561283
5044334054
7019501059
9657367763
0756070805
3572222275
3547243256
1670360289
6635962888
8217090264
3443330834
8666696586
6466863864
9985949051
8622862288
2881117007
2501852596
5151272930
5337587073
2601516505
2184118271
4303636403
5581212515
5837858535
3622722373
3392033933
9602626920
9825598888
3805761937
3620563999
9695266159
3627040043
0307563445
The puzzle
Given the above hint, what famous landmark do the numbers below refer to?
2181036021
3414973906
6133489164
0131746231
1681778117
0444444405
2115425211
6143060006
3138938333
4308604468
1113413142
4641446116
0202330302
5608968947
4384617052
5202494349
5282909319
4302435855
9984826241
4080833019
5864876611
9565672219
7570773015
7822772247
9290236209
2221782671
0553103351
4527177554
1421544115
0910415090
8950399509
2522344232
1920448068
0551143513
2922352642
8480335762
2544854428
6790860790
0893888882
9272111772
0794167371
2274818565
1774856559
2269176268
6794102817
6283461444
7573577553
1824484281
8561115558
7224503787
6872474610
7873410096
8524461737
8574430098
7883384264
3740509754
4783301569
4487567571
3290530243
3883138313
3489344433
7865376765
4747147441
0007700457
6522625647
7711112771
9794974399
6394071641
9000713391
9180942547
7208610579
1109842479
0904116154
3858316394
6991593397
1194213957
9242791274
5659945194
9677913697
6833113368
6966966956
7343474351
7077557679
9292099520
1154555401
8015897491
9528424551
5199155541
1128895450
4234727320
3472745968
5934710231
0838850134
6170291132
5161515161
6446147168
1921116982
4411111241
7053490534
8379847893
3939330259
1790170411
9737737797
8090270869
0083834879
0751647713
7489777413
6341634899
4361491052
4509358828
3565795134
6709744591
0369399630
6059797559
3508980280
4705343750
5565456554
7099996077
1916964195
5535535555
0880770518
6453096565
1558970965
2441191558
7133537017
7697790557
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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