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:

5500375530
6558566855
5576657466
6335339435
1733939710
6385476556
9894237416
2911475430
0585356453
3805259465
2454342393
8076088068
4000240200
2366663263
6193791631
6003360166
4494395429
4803784040
2064348192
6196280135
9665698635
0211109121
5255754557
9617769715
8398538598
3947699795
2270108695
2849649535
0698508128
1179199195
3689420520
8905960720
1040460767
5566820040
8312890462
0060110460
7737763927
2555825548
1297229772
7202990722
1295959619
9496443926
8820084920
7297729327
5158198510
3468259527
1126529620
1983944519
6178183317
9117748623
7512394228
0386255261
6344464222
7807267221
9003437198
3472337228
7779090067
3416764317
2222636222
1917175191
6495653929
8520614559
4655373750
3376414979
7656673977
9300336092
9944949920
6477474764
9355553659
7396713977
1013501333
8658985958
4910554591
8565055868
5585995552
8010568368
5630561250
1088979240
5665046102
1515945144
3131163146
2222232291
8672080672
9222221922
7141156719
1441852726
5178433912
9109156226
5000762931
8875763791
7776577557
9241719421
5197292512
7395447493
7528759778
5596762869
7175716679
7544452227
9791533449
7328761893
9569776769
7793575377
2254656456
8060900966
5196795369
8059583031
7162633135
8190798758
9290563495
5093950120
2470874090
7571671698
6577770676
9160518328
2716478606
1611959671
6666184616
0010010002
4171771498
1191818325
0109042107
0770750767
4477878848
2226626207
1111111519
4075218869
4322118747
8136920808
8793054868
4000656868
2939436551
5462649839
2499434333
0959054853
4766367223
2957959259
7816386678
4694849898
5739070908
0462444424

The puzzle

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

1969414157
1866994956
7046069086
8852264457
4675894356
8955559871
4239994392
5481189151
5446464457
3919813986
2323742561
8858751664
4537170541
7849379573
8307259574
3366331663
4553379534
4816338046
5000550060
1001202071
5584644988
5575231242
0565200943
5089923229
2535501383
2546554457
5585454558
2230663333
5769255572
0074224022
3708277872
1506505256
3494034044
2146006640
4043770430
2403525371
3416246570
4148728195
2546099063
3706243776
4019809924
8564886488
3593455454
3610111106
6704176416
4714161392
8539475982
3603820274
3794492397
6609860030
2211910952
2172422741
2420230742
7637677683
7705717019
9527837042
7978110941
5074412541
9930227781
6630110789
4943193444
2981020881
5244114541
3052330635
5004777045
5002320135
5942132974
2944157576
0944173569
4054111927
7130475046
7544875073
0794475603
4881875043
3339855472
3335555043
6662220642
5658675086
1484848472
4006002046
9999594551
6779786796
9488228294
4668657465
7088778078
8127054598
2723274748
1950098596
0497424078
2803658096
3539368359
2881189861
0280202822
5413641563
4841118804
2904218523
8077109824
5705881503
1932062329
1204218204
6321712636
9722927299
3687996363
4892770474
8955775575
4651782226
6895996295
6956920376
8691978242
8727756108
3567885556
7963896899
3478558745
1689469918
5610774606
7673567568
3619811901
7465878499
3568591645
3668712168
9990939910
4447478424
0988552809
0038098003
8233993983
1455893089
4639798404
8024162883
2401598083
9093078883
8697246181
3693348773
7155933704
8117730238
3297149564
4297177123
3207223737
7193933399
8692772986
7915337557

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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