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:

3660706357
7181917098
2216622216
8869477894
8870338702
0061237802
4025936397
9309517091
0445327396
1537327857
6468713831
3861484733
6778584721
0408198733
9901015631
9911394731
2721315232
9781118791
8334684633
9289282829
4285091034
0102197684
2082280614
5947497644
0879074016
0770797044
8499991834
3963779316
1369987913
4348334684
5831633785
9887183505
6209496581
1975373804
4931093781
8449998844
7333337587
0559090561
8853703785
4845686904
5118380110
5921313493
0894888362
1111370182
1924509689
5124552542
3815883888
0994339450
0321331303
1834848418
3744171243
8429942922
3265436536
2750352323
9715515999
3745502964
2250431861
8480514396
8425428385
2765500526
2709918884
1031628528
5142424629
3312018825
6818218688
1911918019
8258298625
6686866884
3883424838
2966625625
9216262969
5383254238
4182558858
9340559359
8575978898
9540921816
1170970794
9283945929
9340522592
5542213327
1046106011
5072000572
7742012047
9119176911
5355533365
1279233945
5716872515
3980176961
0710503967
9809004975
2433131244
2555757238
9055815839
5866085066
2233573225
0698655265
9250185969
8731851028
9506011839
3722281864
2427474472
2522222552
8415044851
1744677791
7117551771
8127546842
1487567519
8425545782
8417670430
2444622717
1337136711
6092808621
7207574502
8218801821
5464556446
5881451511
9351851811
8478500721
8858956601
5119736521
2512110252
2256946129
2627872886
7782787972
7979799877
5275892127
2964187957
7322386177
2938039279
7710442986
5816666668
0118010008
5757455545
4959490994
9831111199
0851187129
7111039190
4718062319
4938486431
9731103379

The puzzle

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

0107770007
2697729259
8006260886
8093588008
0760777660
8607760639
0167720601
0403578808
8107703027
8007798571
9506927848
2253306954
2565726854
7369357286
4855670148
7685577258
8086220886
9045550954
1722172114
4482826845
2967567908
0199310298
6529467988
8978642255
5634617962
1921912995
2268660282
6669717964
5105747530
8888880958
4445450430
3237333756
1818480184
7271321237
3087770308
3765251284
1412423354
1632853200
3543954700
1806880734
8108000188
3011330111
9391819331
7582442848
6545115851
9502124336
7581816885
3118136314
8548864739
1345338847
5254352452
8431633586
8812721118
3781999173
9752797725
8752303119
8231937205
3481606255
5211794755
5212052460
3805827053
5512028812
2323487015
1210964815
6992057913
5010158012
1882188815
0042224002
4169964915
7979227913
5000005034
5555112657
4432903493
5444858045
5485774358
6169053435
5784214054
7752775053
5068404097
3910078396
6707410794
6942490534
5370729666
7847265340
6907725187
1549555444
6877776776
5348083548
5700407505
7946267204
4700404474
1558758055
2946564545
3353933333
5307350370
2307348595
2793550186
2958922245
1356430583
1708555243
7509885908
7116171177
6518262684
7733535777
8420333024
7538102142
7518394705
7519344387
7138177519
6513723370
8112666161
5355835335
8763666666
8548788586
7120999907
7718928741
5165624634
8122859196
3153694068
7162642613
8758556858
1863974732
4993706808
7848770074
1993306242
4733979494
5858787885
0865258208
8996390996
1444554454
0030576410
0748561700
0612446445
0512186641
5740583917
2700377002
2018512820
0832488018
5540554005
0650500006

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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