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:

9300203020
5963566595
4566544654
8807580879
1286332336
1503562127
4263284454
5902318380
4260544895
5963550635
4448494849
5255555055
5554953449
8000454208
6633513566
5850014869
9505054249
0524893868
1483853438
0369755045
5835186868
6922449650
8628724824
8135047245
0138185294
0008118010
8836446288
6125776127
5951051955
6422266246
9133317313
0412020200
8108515801
7511155111
3103110131
0112327819
9113122254
3532166080
7003175717
9113338780
8858508557
8939339928
6880767833
7697779767
7497799742
4081277967
2864179722
2951179537
8951729747
1119579737
4793904273
2101842097
2503306397
9031863385
3181166068
9531319939
3383183116
1003900001
2191991919
3701883170
4131995043
2258977312
3213359709
3738233506
5651928350
2244332422
4151911411
5611616666
6638763613
3755222232
3018021455
3629320849
8184427555
1050624435
5163090555
5999391435
2802420844
0051787051
1075717509
5534560035
9044390434
2654554252
6560465608
8034580508
6575155156
9554529114
8674548728
6744485110
2055590384
8074109926
2445589079
5223089009
8849271070
6757579241
7278271271
7220172071
6878886874
6886667889
4020289240
2271211220
8100008100
9301292339
9836999939
7424444421
4724974497
4424943136
7104211646
4700256880
7124946345
7001222431
9080779225
2050221018
2185067117
9080731759
2925707043
9040796004
2953292333
7306076377
2020122202
0985797075
7515900096
7601687098
3502013426
3015000356
3521907135
3531532533
4925646226
6606060006
7513951951
5024225240
7352539851
9809905811
3319973870
2647974851
1542679451
5387373817
9958591855
9333839084
3557075350
7147774471

The puzzle

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

9618138027
6202865089
9595193529
4495845889
9472167280
3195135995
6612026222
4401444444
7878888778
9525895722
7707601209
7000133710
7149828467
7152888515
7080345520
5507110500
7089809878
2700277000
7052375973
8140888040
0516589933
0181382921
0311393665
2316586057
0188720801
0118518108
2378337873
3881787317
4416544211
0201612200
7795705797
5535559543
3818561185
6476671464
1757919571
5002619193
8588671561
5407329767
0127509481
6667951183
1437206466
6348066368
8000336641
8931709645
2258212648
0111119401
0130601366
9668030695
6333632669
8616616648
9456596654
7227702270
8818008288
0120061120
6696191262
8898296258
5735701270
5167161274
9061608170
5446408720
2416185367
0474195952
0576859650
3806922422
3430523063
0505550500
4870144874
6466969986
3835138888
2416821444
8206585288
6835168538
9776997917
5755005055
0185551011
5175143593
5256123990
9806025963
0705565731
8956544800
9900929900
4355853478
2010020271
0050000028
7300330027
7765830477
7883200078
3376100408
7168050278
1137622401
3856061252
1195759232
6142862352
6080851202
2626232105
5751157415
3763232655
6313363102
9161269132
6111261226
3782199001
1722548823
6122863759
6199536985
6786701530
1786518696
6127812726
3972773723
5892855229
6129921216
4233663444
1814644864
5216215856
2630223632
4177555177
4633523627
4130271193
2835254866
4217679847
4237530761
5202472406
0000793170
7796666779
7030032007
6226992736
8966692100
5828062170
9869592700
0596572703
0601992477
3925237654
1442263902
3914237604
4532393632
9833033402
5967797504
8538533658
2811161822
4934797438
8300663800

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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