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:
7793491805
7139300015
3323581300
7300766196
8734373883
7320731307
7153531355
2496369634
3304430033
5579054069
4574454742
2779777492
2344336124
7216476169
1596706199
6220536762
2129476762
0342609049
1877718187
8858982918
5287220857
4555556426
2823810820
4469972827
5001850820
8286670825
7197373887
1171130711
7567557566
0018052180
8988918839
7802638569
3575712206
5593150139
5683538111
4856957239
2655222525
1432113423
7521177615
6604111461
2655120487
1698122175
6501290319
1404186273
7524004218
9450889949
5450455455
8934595834
7266996279
1800588150
5806935751
8960856636
8950972375
2202513293
8142327702
0662338709
9003476910
9066340803
3245774421
8062440800
0686008808
7753757777
9168366391
6887197902
1124187480
6076282053
6986901419
6473973996
6023666033
5944245589
1587915787
1146111441
7442964972
9702779027
0770017605
8919118009
3302617107
6102519107
3112514915
9207219067
4580779907
7704794737
1199434491
9909090400
1904114970
1923214401
0222723001
4687533780
3094324400
7718594481
9083996098
5550565605
1138080813
9349391343
9425410343
5273281303
8006086393
6571091193
8079810393
3413797461
3383120717
3053435460
3081167476
0389790888
3513553533
3351713177
3063431660
0061100101
7627587617
5327797087
8508693616
0101695919
5615155416
3937393679
0680087980
7771575517
8998193810
0160906991
7114561765
4430034410
0114194101
7811895761
9528194164
3549104464
3249633901
8726606715
The puzzle
Given the above hint, what famous landmark do the numbers below refer to?
2886568252
8617171865
1319331064
5395590253
3100038255
5399261564
5145361265
1830675262
7598791865
8384137831
0216940625
0265542807
5035634801
7077737817
3858185301
7333384337
5842242853
4060440620
9413300223
8027587395
0413309886
1053349532
9917393791
0014201051
8050250850
1413741714
9523333322
2760976799
7791977727
1099409491
1587175115
7737988171
2137936863
1580166096
1741153254
2791985167
4783975802
4652413899
2789413405
9688835189
8415515804
1790117290
8890110108
5882435482
9337973199
2773272773
5150051702
4734354374
5458959403
8672072773
3674882305
6246252744
6852654373
6629452745
1516772720
2754444346
2596784067
2216729365
8016916106
5764454549
2996767979
2210422440
1551414545
7687878560
1954011950
1100131060
3773735370
5680078359
5790635562
5453437950
9413265950
4160961570
8111441186
0110772901
0755572502
2531130158
8806270511
0311472512
3835370912
3896072109
4990932986
1614278612
8824843628
5696659661
6111116461
3785856316
9973019362
3746414621
3981043402
4335543638
2497339745
7404908886
5804920990
7394349502
2397999797
3877276778
9903393399
7883998388
7434844833
3089290898
5558685555
1217417011
2566156655
5218185768
3518136228
3388186853
2056230207
1886439846
7084031352
4141091256
4658685256
8554471270
7222772802
8622282286
4444444176
5535581356
0152595270
3961945745
7774844757
1464426147
0475874357
5555375355
7744747457
9847424849
6011006721
7424224730
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.
Comments
Big Ben
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.
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.
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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