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:

2012710661
2371803349
2408983800
6776725531
1476960715
2073732722
0416911044
9302696272
6771817116
1472174211
1941739905
8841804757
6513376197
2901936411
6911920120
8241774127
3916393339
1941999941
2553955955
6817876317
2959571395
2152527251
0000710071
4152949521
4934993404
6625291321
8297740921
2298490404
2621211251
7125217571
4477577853
4127598869
6162521463
9928340259
4678525539
6478574857
6177117136
4808648688
9624889266
4962529422
2863742475
9761658986
1763238954
1088269148
8761388145
9779399779
8745677747
1893713077
4561774145
2083283022
4499664439
9066995769
0080030068
0625020865
2979559276
5440630065
0333860269
2673199739
5031865869
6336239705
4668994011
4833975951
0733373005
8711986101
4528305686
0712917171
8116919111
9533393319
4868744886
7628008808
3981006308
5887888887
8885985588
3553635553
4954199411
4955980671
4987600245
3885952244
1857630942
5884866263
6261202436
3111133181
0048854680
2442256246
0507975090
3190836290
7067253686
7550136390
6170934630
3800933090
4089800498
7297273522
7680008674
6884668174
7227392307
0988490678
9521370474
6604378572
9334500424
8626902874
5651551115
7660761843
5610629730
2673734559
2860743361
0174717077
7869089898
5653665665
5617469677
2170517555
3953838933
5871185717
7803930975
2511612655
7545577574
2545906743
3843126354
7941861994
7859905837
5555956786
6063422270
1911036939
6265238031
3911015833
1076346976
3466334366
6083206828
1979414984
6926096062
8211212128
3069004909
1163924356
4603929526
4073009568
3173140315
0663113016
1603913369
3104031345
4076204060
1093003010

The puzzle

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

4858645568
5551555555
6525965556
1275571253
0024110210
1275944734
4525629516
6554942409
0221642242
0558032780
3733133713
8256768756
2000606052
1511115011
9333939913
7116618912
2217505058
6244603712
3060335951
2298609713
2320303332
3926821929
2311331112
1592555211
2841555488
1940388155
1511119814
1321587666
3322513722
2541317227
5676565547
8220808502
2929952299
8899729178
5091991009
7359698079
0227605592
5584848599
3089691208
4631522502
4123168143
4810165016
7878128809
5125116169
2025580790
5818111155
8060500005
2670175770
7825171778
4185994145
7390234497
9891746289
3396795371
3436745171
9391346446
5811311111
7890407997
3595759373
9476772477
0339193933
7545708925
3365187136
7962423037
8808727737
2572897126
7571795077
8887818738
2611226126
5700707650
7357783175
9022409084
9400351852
3844900284
9057400082
2377071084
8798779488
2000000020
9898809182
6597572856
1114101244
4637159703
8618319875
9638349060
2613300219
4635303142
9345193143
8638338363
2463026605
2376575373
4618318138
1544424363
4380452772
0051052806
5816142818
9516452803
1451114552
3856852368
9791292716
7308323078
3828378803
3497149116
3993669354
3990619756
3093710107
1493148744
8893114199
3425624362
1995779919
3280663202
8437243322
2622726377
4258554894
7449779694
9993296932
5156116485
6168096884
9407459675
4101396437
7846049997
0565776497
4527688467
6538528003
5928443549
2537657491
4928984387
9787997098
5798558875
4927449749
2521665221
3534334333
2249944829
8177116878
4442462744
4204504582
5232775228
4834012229
8645712779
6349682888
6212305844
0652764589

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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