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:

9357233926
9781379391
5895858885
8114681646
7659376673
5395368780
9387287874
5612697980
9387212985
7314375734
7146766315
6484524627
4496574717
8255764127
4158835125
2222332167
0442004237
9526566725
7327727315
5568585695
8448285424
4487874128
6844468646
0562656120
0092990688
2546055626
9660665128
9508478108
8687684128
0705595480
2669752976
1557719725
3999917993
7574715741
3000550062
2133659746
5176356941
7240355796
3896259722
2874512021
8643041787
4849381596
1402479780
6873304527
5801561974
8449393334
1803773088
6642460266
1069000061
5071501051
6474499650
4163000851
9947719154
7272459753
9400419634
1736999731
0105810850
3653655633
1112319132
0844884504
3623126211
8473883838
9617761999
3775777377
3596191681
8693740221
3726776234
3776719527
8623736802
3377115108
4778884715
3283283254
2423222234
5052645650
7717177171
8392673674
1490267254
8789727774
4516374615
1935287250
8609481084
5201574846
6811808793
5609862868
2219167367
2289592558
8663223636
5319855119
5852112721
6801688101
2286600869
7099183826
1698780155
0274089186
2430036820
5418550185
0079079950
6000830866
6663683626
8227806827
9060910420
7710070840
3579826159
1505115844
6239216849
1294910429
5555585145
9913136190
7662226659
7575575845
6672777626
6629062690
1931191639
5760444760
2433332432
6083094426
8553572666
7223672620
7486471637
6043372629
1391784945
6382543131
6361526986
6951573698
5358768323
1398555933
6967077666
8271171821
6972794669
5352555555
7478468427
3897938759
1975154197
1063331633
0999339990
9123058720
2008264993
4585659427
1998118753
3216734930

The puzzle

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

0724330308
9979505680
3929068416
3303349304
6709569542
3229399242
9277579777
2723073302
6924724277
3309333030
8575557554
3553333515
7072002676
9339113090
0990994066
4145053060
6397732596
2115052094
3179512655
2446903513
1610616666
6418418611
2820883228
9141111911
8558757855
2520120493
4640149761
2521450320
9518697401
1451143155
6661830381
1020825934
1660846840
6622979902
7665960658
6925959266
6621661161
7666066676
1622522226
9660861686
6164584324
0710938284
6410227541
0712583520
4714765172
0717571190
6612212612
4340664043
4468141886
4154711141
3059702071
6252869862
4555749248
6291914191
6295764604
1255955552
3092733239
6672868676
6991969699
4209898852
2229425233
7973325423
3751762053
7575715603
4348615801
1843318413
6070765037
5443515403
8282222851
8280188221
8175536942
8379145768
4778888950
8171125438
3174340128
3364553555
4557155445
8179578896
7775875587
8141313311
4434747343
5547485534
0044114460
3688698366
8888776685
8115017685
6907485666
5797797465
7791987465
1913794880
5217450379
9619015799
3512112392
3252155329
7392415879
9515115529
4720905794
5999059099
2821112812
9899968379
0860419688
0781133988
6565615282
4061825484
9892033882
2322333282
0888110883
5458425914
2481132184
2222419428
5516756712
5658668564
0226264207
8988819288
6501131055
6258019204
0391016258
8545436756
1101861555
2466619568
3181556325
5293112923
9070767025
0563956385
5278616200
1115556911
3339334303
8777717285
2200952290
1662166129
3177146448
7037514221
3335832220
2036708981
1276566877
3277999787
7136868377
1357551735
7035666357
2786772787

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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