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:

1280228429
4807335059
4201133628
3802382012
1807385881
1881313631
2800102082
5207472755
5749295574
4742144424
7472122271
4005747555
1990776071
6957675665
1700170001
1405167954
6605634218
6900731996
1950782961
4407148557
1444174133
7619313579
2205252103
1102121150
3183553381
3081251531
9922052180
0453173173
7864813543
6917172109
5017670079
0007532152
4001653070
1037988662
4996565676
1931919191
4009604944
5007330507
4798557557
2116556535
5094974727
8074940625
0000491488
0476998836
1096982625
1074992919
0494904900
6776077677
5000000000
8876788877
5192282017
0482129476
6685163291
4468212427
6492789978
0162111122
6188112186
8673262887
4952744495
5490895505
2848231591
3691739958
8868215191
3408930541
5447831178
1555535651
2989332978
3303519593
8139931198
3115160351
5857311943
5459380432
5457649717
5831804317
5630320303
9457355575
4672373366
5630803033
2751373535
5867660767
2793094096
5774927403
3984087524
5785080877
5724320960
5786375873
3774833777
4127004050
9995859555
2183482383
2020394559
6247808598
6225798534
9693318434
4792097530
0499594590
0777107154
2374272438
6339118293
5882828458
5854072908
2160173431
5288304478
1442102730
6467274431
1473374433
3888303478
3333723733
1111171901
6991662919
3518455385
4923545352
2457725225
2735005003
1531555755
2528766179
3535336772
3931464094
3511439350
4425721659
6221879534
9442881509
7282821359
9446174603
9867183418
3468774088
9847894878
5426154242
6292826228
7701317070
4433260596
4192874126
4490866118
1467848847
4460927036
0990550095
4087204728
1492811191
4261912482
0143810040

The puzzle

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

4397415912
8262958912
4480435942
9212858914
9408675998
8511135814
8199918918
2770775412
4431545312
1221951992
8633140182
1408520663
6630473158
6930416435
8958145768
6450550564
8621363623
1438433440
9908189901
2640222022
2039036092
5211445241
6399556933
3231002301
8898332864
8752236332
1398832094
4001906041
3696947891
5319352943
3297444435
3269559074
9365523845
7859542767
7269308150
3077530730
9955355596
4866544644
7269066220
3399293933
8201250409
2700200310
8054638564
8009592926
8240524304
5788578555
2209887288
7854258524
8031535050
8240884488
2777442747
5940940000
2175451523
0343737303
3465954499
5370965258
0970456983
0745990559
2740972986
2341467624
4535760430
3748362863
1435252133
6547060833
0002430722
2707750722
7499997412
8036360833
3334060734
3364832860
5885556857
4888444808
4480848028
9556905749
5171157171
1227256028
2945858759
3330954888
2301947808
8991404701
1898639034
5556979694
0659670481
8536472333
1796365040
5856995856
4755454547
1599651111
0406304696
8658956859
1496009914
3968299323
5631336336
9321414942
7630133960
5691147717
3628383395
5462392105
5431086733
5961193433
8841399030
0305342522
0852529101
2591381570
8302529132
8301310333
0442334249
9850385539
2502555222
0445334344
5523020305
4485544558
0199991209
7979997909
4416771854
2630490359
0178071800
5858121809
4114344505
6603891854
1395445581
0711639651
2656038506
6846435957
0160430701
5737738781
5551535551
7377330707
1912129951
5646448506
6036036060
9888889496
5444423984
1002606712
6009111096
3160833094
4671739962
9714103080
2884136916
4742919446

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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