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:
1636750961
3493885587
1666950111
1666380913
1966776661
9433333934
3660866886
5875858878
1697370391
9370347738
6574530343
5683374608
5683363826
1045330440
6872112638
5680368566
4784584555
9333797793
4198788897
5578050857
9216196211
6209999046
5218721011
5499880582
5296126714
6108094813
6469774416
1335641569
9497597879
4982717653
4159251858
0998797408
3511881553
5960750679
7557711557
8763667869
4127451313
9608378919
0274513328
5240813028
8418918918
3207373023
7833335817
3951333159
2255355321
2972227299
8647078486
7326828243
9565115515
8366166838
9576229215
8576014953
7946468039
2927126097
4025773335
1335641813
5926947838
5081413835
5835358833
7673777736
6880047086
1995163915
6311911698
2282112024
3993939997
2199591526
7777117775
9464091595
7009431019
3872092724
8220017025
0566392079
1118309667
3288880266
3924800500
9814369536
7018371018
3984988839
9216882198
1813681182
1108558105
8583358536
8728828581
0688569508
9922992248
3370099546
2276595588
2576859034
9356499581
5574762541
9515165829
3729252226
6802242809
4168854028
4843334848
8999987629
2555252225
0000649006
2316663224
7632249378
3752121248
4402228002
5907344117
2967119129
4753237454
5632333255
5408284022
3522152361
0719570050
0733773733
0230102021
9501355991
0733187917
2770100967
0000768551
0019378264
2533226324
8519053553
1241558429
8581736711
1589708361
8380550058
4841714818
8549049096
2574144772
1719991971
The puzzle
Given the above hint, what famous landmark do the numbers below refer to?
2175751526
5786888588
1418511488
2555755557
2317503899
1416780825
2556602480
2586753022
2177813073
9384901029
8629685881
4189992613
9584329554
9549999499
8123333380
4385645684
3744343333
3684666883
2712822211
5397897335
6307363037
2284998298
5307505721
5797901875
9294507193
2312806932
2584875085
7083469864
4366070928
3885674850
6843073326
3701773920
4653661354
6663669366
7077770873
8885865858
1448295717
5967594753
9146065013
4589694914
1494994913
2777725726
2656225657
9996598593
6560065014
1546661402
5585484455
1111519151
0100115802
4430811892
8353184459
9487089409
3474711493
2352069452
6203222020
1674511917
2222626222
1976191179
6273546628
8203624583
1273608000
4674558794
1273581232
9918218492
6616111316
2637673236
1591313179
9467611139
8654810216
1168918199
1009613319
3040713413
8903983039
8651356348
9994987449
1421114216
2028650245
5950553499
5285386095
4923367299
6853486615
9499636941
4042664247
9591151879
3431338014
9207258274
7852666871
0153323876
0336764241
7693283041
3039119031
3737733730
0242220222
8496338948
3442144571
3597710395
3216391580
3546788803
3437376545
2542572542
2577555732
9989905988
8554995485
1394292485
7557352180
1958395388
6184902988
2858505948
0415909501
2842844882
9198337131
4138531181
9895947135
2548370840
0132649502
0448942990
4812810568
5379151979
1185686618
6191619169
5756752767
7181784765
6385600323
1176666008
6181750005
6173704898
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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