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:

4594953364
0741055105
3347909703
5398597022
6004544891
4590595455
8701908701
0384038404
6038483406
3147313237
9409520218
7586625294
6676627491
2467750294
9156435247
9119338198
0144130491
1505005017
4124247244
6669525596
8118385888
1111911111
2488982849
6527555755
0647556576
0487384266
1128688946
0118956914
2517542415
2628540917
8854407695
7543147837
7414356261
6857473505
6243109228
6724172262
7544335574
3457447454
9827397771
7213172771
1823239284
2925991952
8902050892
2220900922
6396996364
0531250322
4104396862
0950556352
1166351864
1738876894
3042845873
4373855544
3819572879
7587575244
3494875639
8244552844
3444440343
7678475674
2563565239
1171171871
0711101274
8300888330
9886070980
5856555685
8977958987
5064671975
4276051287
2771551287
6180488530
4311751675
5633561350
6020040022
3333430334
2119319532
2093532059
8103632332
0317460830
8069839020
7028239030
8182060030
1543759529
4707354819
7378348592
3637853752
9659871590
9157731799
1133143413
2225579522
3505950359
8085558850
7734422877
2980540728
5906657112
8055493838
8431547395
7981511981
6816611111
5738787517
2455444454
8004404400
5945678642
6421208540
2456200246
1684057640
7635458957
0717171207
0420101240
7755757755
4285998942
0666060606
7522222522
3128558158
4863848884
6299626996
1217772270
3592781882
7119613685
6027850957
7829764218
3263577648
5131911955
1215811212
5377277577
4692093449
6768577576
4611945426
5615869417
8112083569
5215069130
6672556017
4245020544
6477447367
5865888567
1939190416
2252538625
8026697466
2797628467
8316830617
5694178647
9861727627

The puzzle

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

0014790999
0237764809
2698587408
2287564587
1017761519
8413551803
1097790717
8744547844
2238555858
0087778787
3098958216
2468680014
2116168277
9708380619
2446652179
3293938279
2852552278
6480068014
0166550616
4833883168
7996036399
7095630352
5992723308
8709219959
4143230968
0939339909
8230820398
6119919146
3734343052
6036303369
3874384343
0360300000
9340749437
1827087780
6028336681
1360347679
6377093926
9360317866
9540073885
0820394277
5379679588
0808687358
8057269996
3542655580
8842964068
0758950099
5029858885
8842288488
3309539913
3977667773
3207420222
9643566164
7950850078
0161401146
3285355333
3103545327
3980441133
9181553734
9403453420
3601485499
4771741879
4887181433
0688080658
1757516375
6199119659
3712411635
3714616355
0796811375
9792781439
4595989689
5757553282
5710412809
5714475748
5314440003
5054526650
5420110615
0736173310
3019430011
9787578555
5054445454
5511565114
4145888584
7676656746
2977525791
7363393276
1579295516
9540728586
5914866776
6319488816
9586965711
4877288822
4320232230
8010606848
4966363663
5442335522
4460301220
4310396519
4840383464
4860256540
8082308919
1354754759
4319651706
8730454218
6201352053
9209031019
9514955419
3334234213
6010001006
8282254728
5784447750
0100555152
5620022065
9090800088
0661616666
3545535555
0601568244
0140020046
3600666399
5160573638
5391045118
7430351160
5531307511
2938185603
5530347934
2527169212
2738377322
6410313616
7631136117
5531351595
2527325235
9226522229
2983723333
3512225113
8369893873
7073171073
8979540803
7282697443
3583505672
9313771599
7323503321

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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