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:

3333363913
2432242230
6663372663
0293524350
7727992772
5943292630
6606453760
9794492330
3496064752
1446172310
6929539563
6859942892
6509984269
0936504460
5956984718
6921595152
6950501956
5035252322
0879600967
9806999908
3150208198
7318579820
7127509306
2018998142
7155144731
7917917171
2128512222
2296262622
1355111133
3047540348
6804397122
3731719664
3128625058
0245195666
6945417123
7672712617
7778727084
3683999863
5962339652
8583895128
7534937495
5192125121
5089000820
6169666619
3539191959
7084164470
5139002504
6130147515
6599973519
3169062462
9555635569
1264412604
1111125119
5230393802
6061110116
9850015102
3947210517
2224412802
5108613609
7343533102
7082578587
1566651165
2273323363
4443848444
2782972298
2773502151
2265686507
7062501232
2542999417
2283545037
2100002216
1554561545
9994890408
8895868879
5559535659
6400291879
3276861448
5768705458
6840238236
5552408849
6860661066
0511811015
1772512227
6414561155
1352135211
0360507311
1812568249
6574187945
0372564634
6812460494
6381560341
3462460581
7927060841
2340554341
1996630247
7344134341
4051660541
8088808886
4724235247
7464434467
2949121992
8768676686
7931719101
1799097991
4077373377
2069742187
7939314594
2738668964
9798353414
1739175999
6585405693
4474872474
8335870593
2555925621
7497870041
7355375523
7742525547
9666400694
0142172011
8998080491
5232656323
2201312283
5923635663
4829244428
9174333771
9823369628
2221263938
5901371944
2982201532
5222668769
3254698127
8536798194
4983899749
8050408339
2710096127
9992999329
9766166197
1088218823
1192912139
8707808734

The puzzle

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

1951696919
8585258858
6141346311
0603808360
2339392303
8939347541
6159234747
8643351592
7643281805
0655274113
2474272249
9792972999
3232232236
9333732307
5918158916
8501672249
8925132246
2658971996
7444772246
0168032236
0646006660
7010900005
3544535554
8373533353
1737771777
7040527178
1734938155
2743528259
0617547175
1713973753
8439545221
9033477345
2031385903
9429573763
6039547109
5021552255
2819333889
2480701874
9693666699
6431466411
7665657956
9889583895
2711661210
2292909922
2866776892
7300651226
1834267990
2893067892
5821753902
1966877816
3449961435
8384001266
8979753296
1949601496
1636451418
5553551436
6694264296
2448421418
1566663162
8565705786
0053808330
7960497277
1257271172
0601565016
3111513331
7917542501
7411482519
3101880927
0601594515
1211455871
2302538355
7451401716
6431298786
4111818284
7498837234
8193391386
1912217219
4424338244
0727708774
3533330335
5115185116
3343383314
8867646802
4448048095
6691716879
1356416819
1523973396
8405646879
5214083302
2979686109
6439062334
4896669533
1453595431
8460182393
0181075344
6133771343
5009695606
6076475460
8528382534
6669969997
0307306037
0343303413
9229898752
0555070705
5052555013
3260055053
6162376015
5443900717
4140895753
3660405515
1200873716
5199102938
1608735727
5619886191
5908300136
1608330116
1918181115
5780888877
5609796657
9299899992
3332533235
1643046310
9994444139
9159492541
2798572528
2510833325
8722943130
7106936532
6987444515
9306392521
6116361113
4575050744
9109222200
4520324703
0889398393
4516362131
4120329642
0106301309
9126202020
0549030498

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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