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:

3811811185
0030434103
0374387403
3283866832
8001116980
7177616900
3334931103
8520081903
6815866100
0647057403
1115342308
9490047928
3312432135
7518537308
3722634365
5143134135
0581636108
5535552355
7333837958
6677747362
2064366222
8451885551
6477276472
1677555367
2990799799
8667544489
2964242666
8994439805
8461718716
1464750318
1203032402
8973677898
7134040773
0893888890
7162555271
7804582888
0203558969
8932589436
3163642585
8963559985
3800448334
7356533933
0525252252
1967771197
0752355530
1955523967
1806984196
3525326071
0362254008
3865506622
2211721297
4187999181
5195119555
2991592599
4367334473
2997502702
5197570218
2391399882
2397366932
6181578939
0981210782
3155313385
0443413400
7276882167
7337776233
5284613332
8442913463
5079210163
6786116487
1075619132
7489887894
9879393479
4486348446
6459959465
1985778157
1989320163
6905303026
9886823438
7459939776
6489897002
5141772456
9874096979
3750396879
0567392961
9711296270
9226996260
8446982449
7947974954
1619196971
3494934966
1396289153
0266113124
5954574638
7914543152
6923017510
5578374538
1601113110
2991949621
5555581552
7771127173
6802185416
5115589432
1344046482
6919049462
1111635462
9379339392
8885386385
1444041460
0404040403
4641545416
5368460645
7534475335
6148661866
5505455405
3059155159
6044144256
3558675457
7938407382
3348473365
3068413703
4667667874
1345151431
0002002200
3191038190
7141111377
5993657274
6654738837
7531657441
1163861301
1215207131
4414994249
2430232046
4400245204
0200559240
3311131182
9814452202
9729795000
7092938204
2095494142
5901935246

The puzzle

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

6365253656
8583958539
6471336747
6647977965
3445533443
6465949614
6675561710
8241582920
6345213686
8363928261
7675467415
4404484400
6357175416
9999939099
4469196814
0231479495
0963275014
1490936419
6234179854
1584837099
4214821225
7210327313
9124444444
2334003322
2057353753
9054347360
2314320144
9350098787
4254392964
2054901029
0098390900
7164471170
5553131355
9135003010
1843518381
0194126880
0134144390
1165524083
5164546980
1147314675
2282424845
6202696220
2001001002
6678787763
7076997469
8013897229
4635827425
8543496825
3855397747
2928807003
0918389274
1992036671
1432367107
0914330605
2942962750
0715997555
2914329339
4490344444
3433334333
1942010416
9131811522
9091801724
9998113682
2000743586
9191100930
4901191119
2937822392
9848888888
8000488600
4190191409
3344040034
8687196727
3364521114
8465520607
8783108265
3335538555
9154000594
3683868388
8428144828
4767444744
3771367313
3134831680
0116010061
5211828571
1277717627
8604638681
5303137628
8832567627
9398811611
0167727623
6256871369
1256708122
6467797058
3546759235
6440584463
3466936636
4500700004
3756131716
6201560622
1647775746
1184811884
1360016003
8295757525
0586000550
8699777648
8286763386
0369036535
1565821238
8185742579
1187739105
3818881193
1918383139
2846268824
0745749710
7080110987
2685613119
5300363727
8158689182
6836080193
8527111720
8626088208
5077075770
4001200100
6381111118
7554750754
6076104866
5507012680
4406040997
8027735686
7521065418
5550989538
5153553512
8888888888
5360663506
9294334294
7078233532
0659739584
7251053514
4354593586
3067163588

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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