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:

7003844411
0776672271
5930122219
0011442311
9205472352
7171774201
2772972379
5448244252
7444474417
8442442418
0113926782
4090966986
9024595742
6356836792
6091490981
4848330784
7223393792
8996426949
6767746786
5509105931
6545665543
2292242025
2121502156
2666126661
7107170180
2716472556
5387462946
9368602580
5147360563
1018202566
4189294122
5070654660
8754446226
6947094582
0925895266
2256555626
0949954290
5565595565
5575555552
6262196182
0404803748
7379774974
8411111148
0700770539
8488118148
4417418778
1123218147
6910411944
9334114548
6791210538
6437407030
8134754803
0207563573
8696377976
8106728736
5108555188
8534331335
6603463343
8496766886
8247447474
5480522041
5430775502
7825220792
5458368077
5900782351
5908759209
5180100585
1435233443
9822228892
7455373744
1002202220
9184848849
4522626245
0892422226
0795375750
1822305113
9894355990
9064319560
4022355202
0122388922
6538564235
1811181511
2939939929
2262222673
3311318863
2634034233
0343114813
9340665625
8143031615
8437628631
5162515561
0389898048
6836222686
4934643346
1416711141
0164500277
4882647897
5322889621
5432869452
5419276116
4447444713
5855484585
8005096089
0088109180
4411171436
7794071489
4105971136
3666609486
9836694589
5471311083
2146610282
1213311271
7117000289
9327105481
8778410580
4174111471
4112001142
8866802681
0029030250
1533132519
5884339767
6738630650
7376881751
2217819407
0841234467
0664550654
2122416427
5949739754
1541881405
3451364361
9828389898
9434777794
8354133833
8216611869
8675156651
8655381413
9338108284
8654160310
9615159753
8855038729

The puzzle

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

8059808975
7255975954
6717776710
4006969024
8818512588
2763419755
1394066518
9942666080
6052659088
1159479784
3834834433
4975292724
5428045448
2165552611
4616912111
4475586316
2425238194
3821272870
4975506734
3425033060
6468085395
9468879617
3409429609
3443559428
1908562883
3441114415
1903031119
7448544444
6169886191
9442626426
8922578077
5231779568
5886357579
5659750574
3563859673
0950953099
3373030553
8855578587
7667657663
7298729778
4882822356
3919610974
9645412994
3633659962
3478459984
9616915996
8818512582
7494419764
7872228374
0365050310
8740678661
4906339630
2378622726
6649595596
2497595757
8307584901
8407551388
2300534248
2709502890
6940180994
2735481511
6530980176
6511437246
3837189749
7157967752
3153913391
7065444550
2511112251
6830430000
6137617576
9456446476
0095000090
4587242587
6062306602
8367738787
6062762627
6317399708
8457039876
6062074043
9466351699
6211510062
4263903399
6880318264
0943398374
8122417222
6292995062
0972917109
8770708087
2131513295
4730070324
4023949600
1829338188
2588787885
2046426244
0353353335
0323985330
2559776414
2323951560
4826955242
3328991145
5770677693
2861067616
0375927813
9401787386
4716270341
5969959686
7200720715
3636767243
7397374393
2847487411
3381218975
9231897600
3401445559
3638145525
0281902653
0236532265
9881886889
3604111640
3352939993
1488484118
0047445476
4099152530
6093129674
4097225865
6097944913
4047171741
6055456545
4217942745
8597298925
0693131960
0270707742
2228880293
7744454757
7764376433
9282353842
6355873853
4276556552
3649156243
9472570897
8781507493

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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