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:

4477777344
1114747121
1286820856
2235032502
0466916490
6936816190
4368712550
3870372446
0117472140
0167477353
9716799799
1654665540
5633454463
7388373878
3435533355
3633307719
7386324347
9789682584
3684339093
7686367164
5422322245
7344884444
5060455545
4151954912
2450150521
7450140062
8352991638
5021992964
5420881535
5441162967
7918877888
9300403093
8606866600
6429526220
9337993397
7306909263
9416804813
7306875753
9607077315
9616951173
4340795288
6572818219
2561555271
1811886749
1066235789
1115115041
2274994272
9988785789
8260826018
3890838789
2017609894
9548691315
9555060334
9097476373
5847907866
9517971711
2859058500
5047600157
2596662229
2848444224
6013900694
4614246644
5953755997
6709860708
1132551313
6139564183
5682552760
6033794322
6154274044
4013969686
6647776767
0728972768
9213828231
6454845546
5555755575
9458947277
0223972648
5458818352
6452776702
5715870619
6544324560
8581174909
2584743521
3480164653
8845740947
0995119509
6885668686
2460766206
3504440404
8241552523
9801502969
2505211256
7877209503
0579682508
3801369925
2500352025
9815098101
3877274737
7209692966
0511909551
4518225888
9096766069
3173114111
2813999223
9235352333
4813981494
2014121087
2013370537
4536725050
3075329572
9218811183
5706955700
9989189991
6388286322
8550111855
6718928531
6518822098
9558906808
9288102301
1558116937
0148283108
7521711507
8333563167
5297321007
4035893608
7027313077
8118181113
6465564558
2131228103
6306693606
6471805928
3206519249
0297905926
9346409036
4926615990
9995595190
4820090208
1988419849
9600109016
5929555926

The puzzle

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

5032522553
1839933899
1318618318
3342333332
5281559521
5012923515
5334580160
3332349467
3218389058
5341321977
2841138142
1663737162
4444194144
0991590056
9999114997
7783498966
8738790992
8166210167
2644338944
1802530169
3071382544
5059926857
3864712999
2159727475
5929383622
2115717705
5624365564
8561787187
5052990095
3979889397
7301713853
9117780890
3901445592
9514011885
4197727301
9301777012
6712426646
4937699994
3574873534
7197887977
6750775096
1511559113
8782862388
8880538075
5555558544
9832038018
8767352393
6315562378
7834618086
2988535594
9345943447
3581333439
8022393547
5841145487
8608831437
3922332449
3117333137
8975098570
0084041047
5866336586
2734047023
1552929851
4231515428
9885891358
1811198110
5836898350
6581499111
9625991450
7607799453
3254978323
4879387734
3762263022
4871347378
2500320000
2707171217
4801180348
2171349026
4779341214
2871359151
4800262197
6824556919
1690595839
0394520074
6524512137
1334780510
1823532158
0694796997
9750209012
4839559399
6386666366
6493169164
4476672467
6622922626
3981011109
4740977474
6693182742
4612081188
6686907842
4626125897
6780949790
9250718747
5080921325
9450337121
0253990240
5280983079
0250115501
3780388338
9468949996
3090777097
5554141156
0266273853
2853435001
1560103826
1263467430
2661769487
0606116000
1567457645
2550600305
4291828241
9863767733
5737552961
7007496215
1630392862
4560492990
5824292991
8364336686
9558555980
9868696896
4514142511
2522212265
9346909038
5445890748
9416194687
1441954897
5446986438
1445995594
8478948898
5476077707
4310111470
9381738387

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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