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:

9651966959
8224242842
8916169869
7341039744
0548758874
0248122134
0621276939
8614049919
8111080132
0341278018
7267212243
8319324340
5043828713
5669050966
7216164978
3868116888
6049886898
5246058040
8617887677
7373233337
5549959064
5079485129
5573906859
5249988414
4579529953
0649550446
5573475534
8972126297
4049904000
1570955900
0509705077
0129119997
3132331322
9077202902
9041990099
0131989117
9171319645
0123221145
3531222816
0079156853
1601135258
7989137872
4246179805
0165859875
8579251278
5877750378
1128121221
3333533895
5895579858
7203337202
2535125131
6972272629
2327225372
3119776109
5358318305
3578418109
3694975605
5909522609
3432872329
3077678619
5208502085
5049359750
8117417111
3415853341
9429999949
8429344895
5219848671
8409970886
9016417051
9019311636
7908635306
7975080817
7945744210
1965653586
7105726034
4978797775
7165001076
1605465544
7238037883
0606660060
3791407002
5202432832
9464725078
3411936024
3961700218
5304755073
3291592011
9762469792
9417771494
3901730000
5062142357
2070420970
4106225380
5265555279
5817525199
2715151251
0860505968
5062462062
5077977700
4106200100
5018722774
0123322539
2604028473
5369432453
5686292173
1691192176
8948882489
9225229536
8729998753
6676332676
0275520757
7575357375
4752020727
9066166966
7810511410
9275583350
8715589738
4855156973
7875506194
0716588051
7767809867
1514245172
6653326530
5329551932
8143992381
3610896162
6203825832
0988105137
7302892532
2035552951
4913178213
8979479160
9479104803
9025533430
9829302141
4273177742
8088558880
5925395595
9495542954
6819868818

The puzzle

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

3132932310
3263932333
0676660766
1900901019
5969956656
3660906068
3162916425
3969916399
3163908076
3666387700
2629007000
4466417580
6625916787
5939810059
4550613730
6669116099
7507057780
1336716337
5000500550
7010003081
0910101919
7778077908
4994989740
0830577530
9090330592
4259431539
3034531900
9254981932
6990410542
5621771732
1711242711
9391292013
8443914879
1111110135
1010191260
8924694219
1235942851
0090592115
6643410010
7423790833
9689899688
0686606870
0000000300
7787675776
5586558565
3278458800
9657006378
9392405368
6484025600
5198300500
5653444821
6778607898
6956701814
0656798109
5754789517
0738778777
2671461776
7696476796
5533753753
6054666558
1338412979
4010959642
1006408542
9309860554
9236743085
4999994499
1918491381
3033130300
9330773090
3206440266
6684064866
8345384838
3792237323
4739731377
5103919393
5633967585
6734520487
8302396231
3385928287
5743014560
9548982572
0384282927
1201689120
3974786799
3806832979
0999539592
8513686531
8787782177
2420042309
2022282920
4796731510
6766125684
4555703319
7855021580
1795786445
4456754467
3765176796
1997479749
6310013661
7826172871
4620700406
5796665579
7190222216
3898598883
3223992332
3726565362
3720291164
5890230788
7093987790
7690226781
0770000702
2672268722
8253660538
6565965799
2627336279
5845636732
3648505229
1143806539
8800968782
5097035279
3986808670
5453815313
6859153058
4953576866
6889562334
3889535883
3081908809
6253636252
5413848146
4959195199
8427357731
4638564701
6257874054
8508341385
2230654321
0090994000
7878777981
4442444724
3037007331
8551151155

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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