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:

7458227422
9052393930
5449333449
5173931919
5284959826
5052941315
7058981335
9274254409
5678282090
5458972460
5462506945
4426466426
9966069608
0660760217
3316336148
7071036608
0984760926
9404030608
5994569727
3372660105
7385753187
1220880120
8220887248
0109120901
7571175141
7491077980
5463080101
8029870948
1634257921
6828726147
1711009101
9779179591
9590920925
7055060507
1241114120
2552819501
6509929300
2541310107
0402279100
0405460120
3491519349
1513251521
0188778871
2153715727
1251311245
1411787489
1218737367
2553229896
1491305255
0568776211
3337463701
7632963456
5003123111
7332448128
3633967416
0333993933
8632961396
7982492872
3107997770
5902192925
5899063666
2270568231
8079258738
1633164647
1194810961
6658558666
4446664346
6369363967
6576660761
1732313237
8693165921
9818030838
5826175022
6356011511
8656145406
6093198613
8826066000
7656966656
0658006058
5318155515
7329444327
2545259624
7771941797
6899990986
4505373540
0481491580
9250590497
9536374927
4342450724
5659599526
6126616269
8004660468
8939787989
6524445524
2469992964
8406943641
6909633278
8529934214
8909969280
3934639882
2315583552
3713737014
8881882814
4441131424
9121111921
7481632514
5260931521
3971582921
1721733424
7811311484
1434438878
0782823662
8007941881
7927548188
3615638175
0663138160
4742423284
1887171881
1777141875
8688638638
7728979299
7517817888
5860335305
6325966536
7296379576
7720906795
7567314290
7865998529
7319903367
7265369798
5552842358
5458864558
1302021003
1198919412
7777777734
0317617458
0148414338
3517914354
4229161452
7169711952

The puzzle

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

9828274080
4728705960
9407850713
9487335455
8126701783
8008338300
4829779497
9487339789
2126222265
1328888812
2767352839
2077348726
8077495759
3005217682
2015788320
6795976695
3915419959
2077778227
0678202776
8008338038
5210830980
5743550402
5122411999
4744568628
1125502454
2910332210
1724414344
4163556445
5145818111
5872585877
7783262252
3730200609
9650585255
9780768167
3730706953
3764773763
3635865685
6687776697
7733273737
9950191001
3333233263
9044991470
7212727172
5545595585
1759792571
9019097470
1486997266
2811023581
8914727465
1311725573
0354953817
1490782475
1310081012
7454063466
7356786758
0250555405
1032939209
4376007736
2117919911
7414774474
4484412544
3893823983
9863883986
8113381453
2277397232
6324817243
3245127986
5847223933
5163181486
8859683653
9915140948
9500580140
1095571768
6960082466
2565142499
9900559990
6060100116
1991110119
2525555225
1665056611
2875539763
8745298757
8805455591
8844100295
8844568953
8015150011
8846488685
1284218282
2805522025
1712572115
0410444032
3533513253
0333080306
7331715307
8844794887
7063414806
5091713207
2612084352
2917993043
1274013006
1515226513
5393332935
1611616691
3837087730
9668992662
6962637711
5940099792
4151686610
6435082530
0127812730
2322525635
1395197519
0342342031
9393797693
8383333843
4633237533
0332493543
7849922639
8646332631
1867337830
0953431608
2690858903
6058540609
5939345253
0765615653
5545555483
6333311663
9572737959
9951545159
1822210208
1111115281
5993570759
4133334713
6640464026
3141139341
6959074326
1704374042
3257260723
1788875241
9734519389

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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