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:

3423731687
5024431248
3649531668
4049490048
5085071698
8488334288
6666646667
9349991649
2330330273
9715971995
9625563756
2883993450
3544392515
5632757756
1605470775
7775797055
3161773416
9959152719
5503808750
7106660771
1902802008
1713931137
9041449109
1514212151
0447774844
0013787337
0442899773
1743456250
1913700676
1244761848
0733833000
5231003333
2965448645
9500859890
1828515228
5908546864
7533445734
1831027101
5833577352
1233487698
4102184701
8276419162
4526281822
4202194257
3552105079
8522555255
4286424828
4207240721
3672127726
3657226626
2973994372
2424220421
2444242495
7116157141
8116999861
6844859441
0122552891
5603677161
3508757341
2779840371
4202582019
5090436571
9900507026
5700552796
9200184583
1275555555
7490390949
9007100070
4210401404
5702335103
4858747176
4188091574
9858680896
0451494117
8459767772
0851718775
9361897618
8459080958
4429429942
4188484448
8074177088
0656220652
5191895955
7335535077
6053555005
8093144061
0103156008
0074181273
0375549547
5053526034
4876262847
2592721229
7182617688
3936363369
9618116911
2616360162
3918115806
9192620919
8576712172
2932616907
4125106345
7781802547
6460942344
1367546572
9115896547
6422992346
0566606526
4444446544
1221201552
2624442877
8697953314
9718343332
6109755342
2394939543
9587033532
5337354343
3443343593
5445445344
1373873831
3595939592
9186068990
4324523483
4861984991
8493839898
5599559595
8483501758
4461570996
5568557538
9493021104
4123820786
6345944640
2398774127
6799084830
4662674147
7701077126
7731377130
6719864187
7732347326
2247274842
6663737646

The puzzle

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

8310556609
3956710534
4970356010
1970702506
6950347151
6970559656
4616311633
8052703278
1451114511
0376276063
3574154794
3612163111
7958888989
3466043436
2593359393
3412189710
7572387930
2463826552
3313179921
3463199182
4128407278
4321470275
5151514996
5754210717
7724164602
7371377131
4151664144
5794154525
0128228220
5879445448
5956318403
4613602159
9161595459
5564088476
5605418451
5888775857
1668108106
3213112331
9095990453
0755558779
5060038471
7314197685
8684038651
5285091530
7233167406
5610156010
0225902229
7332671633
8384043388
4263022433
5011501543
3383866338
6444486444
3504554033
4202532549
6611052548
3998586449
0924461548
2289282039
3449754948
2613889629
0307594839
9354155655
0159913851
3701094939
0045599950
0260627620
5585585535
1167783761
5845554869
6616916699
1787277817
7680984877
4698448996
2509955920
1610908125
4610985782
2600431746
7691940007
2796907254
0393989396
4373604739
5376281304
3346298684
4276946885
0776977977
4143554445
7294274922
3344644044
3173173313
6581819160
4313804116
1294772988
0269305201
4269305477
3564534535
0391709477
4284724844
6619361166
1217878821
5759985276
5258202108
3117542479
5759752303
5659705731
3591715557
3189583171
5705757755
7658955997
2717211772
4735835486
8229728288
7589679768
4104011100
5305353050
4785361865
4289798783
4209080823
8105994908
4585037812
2480668078
8722731704
2443982974
3622989702
8401904195
5781718987
2602000002
3746934497
8723672626
8489994889
3840339816
7744899455
6588496314
5971690406
8822094496
9989990795
0046406440
9969339406
9977699617
3345434354

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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