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:

8137869070
4227796378
3429159002
4420777037
8380188459
4385151348
7427742777
4123884314
8260660826
3434743363
0077476240
1592159931
6869767689
4142142861
9898998986
2894479939
9474148647
4755976861
9891799841
6620267660
0724627674
3762122341
8263828623
8388788788
2835753238
8263781624
8824180722
8368792335
2368197030
2433866383
2950290522
0220606222
6512421765
2817118121
1940994990
6910107191
2220930902
2920904998
2340431543
2552496685
8001048029
4440226804
4222425412
6009607696
8441992841
5603698842
6571848064
5144095029
6227106802
8576747822
1262441627
0833632680
4055660659
3110403514
8466331846
9926431624
5661961554
3339901641
7564442627
1987742819
7650692106
7310079456
7314555412
8899003625
7990527270
4974333744
7399899838
2808282262
8357007380
7610556701
6466996666
0981611016
1554115415
6650465650
9393112993
6656184025
9520420152
9493621556
6951961577
6661629449
4366991148
9906292168
0700993548
3304528148
4075018018
1811118013
8708033078
8151191068
1118122188
7776776648
3838188818
8163553353
3233320333
1218018881
6053775053
8058768901
1853541575
1036102167
8253063709
1818038983
7900797007
4774224417
4388468348
7527444257
6619114616
9919818017
0263414007
0991414217
6971814359
7259648356
2974676021
5222792320
3758672771
7388392369
6511292080
1776996778
0888072088
5155515561
0232092390
0274702724
0000000952
3499499894
5020207225
7338373863
2775336752
3696637862
0229109854
1507803892
4649803294
3810326895
3445845884
5447994546
5555353553
2745884282
3794173333
2747383561
5445389033
5844816349
3455317585
2545929901

The puzzle

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

7294310339
1027220245
7617788352
8027331370
5057581372
7714714177
7057373757
5222822225
1637574633
8090308989
0616197512
0766778865
1811868671
0867156208
0863104721
1743937711
0165886016
0652752320
5781111118
0816101118
5299491296
7618045379
7345308399
5142041416
2280651499
2156959216
4451545495
9979515979
4974771497
9063808369
4560449795
9254024298
7683027190
7629429392
3448019396
8297114798
1572529517
4443044330
2223628236
7161167112
9146629485
0643977837
1828875595
9644779929
7739039439
0980578905
3772837487
7775772529
6665665635
3959529853
4540544454
7828679826
2645362232
3540455043
5957175175
4640580384
5825628599
2940556463
4540304963
4928804090
5917402093
4855310653
9918798833
9156959836
5988278837
7529572859
9592659692
3809880033
8377797837
8806608876
9851289751
8036503665
5723057227
6989369938
3313333331
8733542867
9729537982
0019233068
3059238175
9033302710
3666566607
6092296567
9943193199
1281663102
2520698683
6367373163
2562568512
0962060609
6663996683
7977194177
0489487087
1420511428
4126190315
0573167021
8479168619
4486554546
0820408244
3422139332
8173677313
8529125859
2569482486
4263740902
9463456853
6135489308
3485184577
3423733334
4285445542
9146696964
7269429457
2533123221
8887188718
5907656990
5466366486
8269080808
3175575155
5209382787
3873124084
8165117063
3179605874
5879148280
1868917986
1655665172
9000797090
1993999319
8755995568
2938499378
8287995970
6231917979
8433395090
1033395002
6906356479
3300351616
3726315297
1026381207
1323500583
3820555200
6745646575
2043302030
6826338486
1302530523

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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