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:

0033690954
7687485605
0684513947
7737591008
0133125201
5634557536
8138118883
7774447444
0087500080
7633537353
2645985537
8591303253
6900813533
7274507121
5186614197
5517118157
7334757334
1551005551
4224214233
9795883794
8827855306
6610605887
3135132451
7129144312
3615588520
5739559995
7186116667
6815886518
8625658566
3717777361
0726868882
5495055979
7322123271
9281221898
4475959957
7272189709
7422208358
9426956781
7328288557
7225045540
5241942241
9134291442
7753635355
3510830038
4511354173
3731943769
3143947557
7513688327
7313220218
5513336988
6666116666
7212521720
7445885444
6045664064
3386776883
7612740631
6286192254
3246160708
7646400623
7482148856
8739889788
5973655309
4257344774
7157751777
8470999808
8459924973
7159920319
0457626705
8173341021
7257732781
6753652409
6039917525
6898650938
6758615854
5759924432
5759797575
0408780004
6733432363
9093999939
6759669996
7317777713
8880404880
3334331493
7242224421
7673776333
6154277490
3664774433
0348204930
4850437483
7607577413
8551777777
2066260622
7163361176
7404004600
9826798277
9163367693
7423974235
7006222675
7421718065
7553094324
5036135724
9873315621
2987175021
0114231229
8097257764
6815115681
2215215264
0677757087
7737933779
2662275626
5846386573
3940287123
3367270024
6297881606
6346168982
5286356882
7697877977
3440548443
9866118991
6345225332
6899298688
5788257884
0339113030
5947044070
4068111668
4869182799
0788085637
5789229445
6338483323
0048105771
7702777270
5189089159
6273423624
6317078160
1278971227
7277960988
6303007444
6309055720
7872909560
5378761526

The puzzle

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

1799391071
0697675972
2506977371
4947935674
8600836644
7187176671
4304431074
4994459844
9597595372
7479749977
3537488260
1253268882
3584708851
0407920786
0234182253
0233773333
3684146186
5457997959
5055255805
1500111050
6806522037
6824839555
4745779797
3858859483
4006562138
6826558568
1751715717
4809483040
9548845498
3055535350
5570821338
0400227322
6626193922
6824296338
9636473338
4992797324
3532276322
9322269238
6006606960
2333223031
3933357343
7997793790
6663332603
4444814847
5475552744
5995294797
3873722847
1205714343
7428654743
7504352643
6637433638
6623136663
4064556045
6522422462
4762377222
6533561391
4537313093
6553407094
4034558725
4722388502
8957958959
3051001551
5988482485
8094744970
4092779429
4998700407
4082735915
8097615160
5087757826
8084714679
3648939886
7323233732
1196663219
9988889887
4454994575
4083233882
3455734236
4704293117
5851699232
0000739815
9362336933
8448485448
7936386739
3033704783
0994554990
7944054738
7250485998
4079436438
0349306940
7853386481
7279828879
8656688866
3656356363
6905509925
2080990822
6970543332
3215980315
6056305606
2650645729
2279672674
7297337299
2313333121
5445554525
1718217821
8525192651
6952813821
1847452691
0338673825
4250897255
0631937255
2529525222
8268222882
4651885165
2933826233
1548558558
1231523793
1209818343
8948207581
8261859791
2561230432
9066594710
1817723009
1412985310
3118283009
1353235043
3443333046
5950095053
2523322380
3394435409
1888181718
6718687866
9457077474
3417534313
5872225888
4943334384
9747344852
4442247780
7872286040
5918092315
4858315366

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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