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:

3705037200
8743444473
3855053805
2139599555
3604333643
3733549608
2853041044
3644942040
2749058562
3805033441
6745666575
0447171114
4927279239
5898789858
0077333730
4748386291
4475725295
0877786838
4647781042
0727114200
1748615670
8177118274
9603811204
0875014404
2306212960
5350315304
4704401474
6962262262
8661818600
9911618960
0909009430
9553499459
7267664712
7797979690
5606556006
6755679712
3968904630
1595309608
9011394690
0150499750
4127048970
6362072854
3986095471
4324174771
6522102596
3997113199
4567055645
1684161418
6122026029
9364006069
7700153461
7315568220
5980553284
7718330448
6958904298
5788378883
0315952110
1960516619
7720222022
6651155165
0001053061
7577115707
7754435497
0985228595
1339313992
9719413997
0512231995
3958935502
4108713461
4524138067
9709009037
2908989069
8888882818
7751755751
8878778517
8854679039
1845575818
4493878839
4956189818
0624802131
3306595059
4373219507
3373263927
6372504008
3332523956
6333933399
4707557850
1378212817
0673444773
3372533533
9848413349
6292936948
9066439823
1266911339
5465234359
3831319328
1433431444
3732933259
4148114883
9399229939
2079733191
1675157923
1641113121
7814293661
5338857123
3263992993
6636632364
0100713170
2172217221
3156353161
9590599950
8282878822
5496941945
4886458461
6551110569
3273690961
5767728425
2076540965
0899971569
8500019829
8185241966
8156594085
8151631149
6735572331
6489528573
4995559955
2139632609
0456056060
8281222882
6326232326
3190480253
2772512677
4079359773
7996882811
9093812013
6562752673
0985780257
9991999011
7277762777
5221212152

The puzzle

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

2494854514
4798098018
2938838812
6433500752
2258149467
2230112201
8951666855
2498882484
6734767647
4413005344
7343373434
0101515100
5566655646
6156136261
5111553116
3700635164
7879516406
1423515336
0335415161
2826835266
3341431134
3811773711
9699299099
1331333131
4226777424
4311303140
1331437154
9241477752
1236327754
3899199981
9547292252
8967099977
9060440000
8853283389
8980770887
8883780136
8953063024
9563408169
8080426143
8562221695
3314045094
8034137734
4035408067
9953078384
8585985127
4482994944
8914045889
0055105105
8334114118
3513433535
1759497975
4524345522
1961191961
1355731135
7966557590
1921724421
1556566223
4326138872
1356616544
1755759632
5766465649
2611614289
8143804025
3250788025
5479634349
9323933249
0145064015
7770305378
2208868629
0118111680
3181648631
0984884008
9991981977
0505005301
5226151612
6660255008
0433004671
4478051017
6006101342
7770085977
7776179228
0576292481
7042157665
7516279391
7026549450
9072555870
9723299292
0576505000
1476141177
7746171717
4511015414
9187687771
4142444244
2001802198
7987398777
4187387096
2141319672
2546387618
2182335478
2941659077
3659277711
6040192741
2679887513
4487173517
7630091512
2399393572
8727882701
7477177317
2211191212
0833328203
2252828541
8041300318
0077107127
1139191163
5998558980
3767290927
7738298988
0291720987
3328607160
2681797914
6515121516
6262606827
0035000053
9676790766
9981972998
7617092867
1500376096
6740420526
2763491897
8150146756
0154948567
7831843239
8272543532
9063038239
4391632069
8873338278
3239932439
3636603362
5362632560
0007843089

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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