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:
0194733191
0066314371
5872012371
9079079370
3315315370
5305003500
8172772761
4433434340
1966969891
4090300900
4709049940
9929899999
0105919111
9799340044
4029019851
4979700447
0699579959
9099535028
9176797768
2022332332
1450414404
3031513303
1126348547
2172452340
1032502172
1175372920
1080461468
2474862859
5254353700
8601066760
6798852591
9199739751
2999873898
6670662760
4949956449
5141441581
3926727775
0514733468
7998950685
2944508713
3446773467
2097196991
2698562299
7524772772
0916911919
5864583822
5153194227
7411559892
8450164785
4470777440
9863088230
5314111331
8117671187
7251552771
3465005752
8062106542
2000620175
9662016742
8268116182
0505000547
5722726175
7352525755
4704741750
7737070832
8888388364
1655166551
8387535886
5504475856
7003366582
4180861831
5775086534
1610265336
0336719772
1863529722
0914692376
1302419792
3232392326
2623322236
2229929992
9817114728
9897899872
0062792548
4252580021
4552679618
4256749146
0562757722
5316533351
6272362266
4163131313
4752679567
9195513940
3157329100
9267731813
5345306079
5145315515
3222727232
0157515557
9306990336
7497279214
6858689380
6972749532
0658850796
5872720000
2662772226
6982692886
7787877778
5973777795
1858818788
3340843925
3077029336
5640059343
5346949573
9340939399
3587030705
8006606600
3946663594
5171871517
4920990022
8630830366
8871070080
8106518560
8606922765
8606630154
9136904280
3906672019
8135660646
The puzzle
Given the above hint, what famous landmark do the numbers below refer to?
2141608753
1171651883
1315707035
2335706708
2311717313
1145745114
2331913311
5378777863
2516661112
8879030401
8679038057
8872279896
5672142477
5462774285
8179179171
1677227727
8896446849
8782088028
4264653594
4311333994
2291085959
7354659914
3111733714
9999299529
5589085590
1165551078
2992922994
1056300750
2928308959
1146038338
3911810052
7333737330
5737507053
9460452049
3505250352
1389918938
3397773939
3752171331
2787478794
6522152225
4523122244
4592128837
0552712883
4582109997
2727113489
8855181558
6544564256
0500609760
3868138160
3651034568
1849004556
1682168365
2449668856
1494731760
9124688748
9537298926
6263280769
2638232469
9189998428
0504430544
2848982049
6601000166
7676758769
9473085058
4537805008
8095409435
5496075508
7888774008
8484403488
4545545354
8555589405
9655575595
4504926835
7228922702
7310622992
8972659798
7971117798
9055559995
1313222831
6022026660
4500145102
6886688656
7177777147
9337875983
9010999012
1045675143
4733877542
0061679049
7246995142
3335822656
1928028098
4035930905
5764166465
4852776787
4985728237
4828138639
6987940259
4862054066
6755197521
1674449146
4667545267
0979907790
1777777561
3742475241
6588509744
8466145790
7581399214
6685849161
3171520854
4521557728
0071588281
0979766154
0901595159
8024584848
6139717719
4573008030
2579559225
8656179950
1019609011
4467572770
8056477811
1898778981
1212149712
2020002250
3077787037
6828878821
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.
Comments
Big Ben
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.
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.
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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