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:

0981024294
5571890692
8875539751
9881159310
8505563073
5805115518
8451051800
9681313963
0545746050
0971590105
8185737303
5062703935
8363752154
5189747677
1085122723
1765711576
5129815992
7362737722
5082982284
8860161880
0017771707
3883886338
6466646566
6069846308
9155595151
9871291307
6140786138
2608016108
7951986767
5501476351
4544908207
1424925303
6544554093
6507679124
0721988366
6747557577
9503158905
4744646766
0521051015
9424999299
1747555747
9952009905
7003703030
0720552550
1021991509
0007900787
0923594720
7043597999
1340589150
0041008296
5840142765
8449692019
4886180831
0614135834
8413966194
0843330878
4449149994
8120918822
5404144105
8616616188
2323220973
2882208123
5282882408
6000006026
7337779783
5055072478
2722202728
0521270025
5530400123
5043409778
7089171779
3026553030
1537117155
7660878766
8158158808
1058141214
3088893537
1686136958
7667571234
3065158108
1912212192
5885688565
2915991955
0795557576
1206551655
1885944108
1795262172
2702281600
1735578420
5215288223
9594159911
1228555815
7338138017
7755474747
6341914993
9254540123
7521486124
9348455309
7734069299
7395415028
8855532251
1955412851
9781932857
1857042909
3045611809
3255532259
2122122211
6000902934
0220435204
1111111877
8999886938
9159519705
9590555209
3388938098
0229795279
6647435209
1307285278
7995528005
7781596995
1059289705
9118381135
1761161297
8557475584
6538856538
6640996408
1511091295
3576596184
5633871234
3833716585
5392685297
9288379291
2104377541
0963801581
4993922441
8749891992
5227572542
0011007091
4484404481
2082171281
5955999975

The puzzle

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

9030009090
6288666661
9196019199
9254949949
4078117084
9186168893
9230612031
9276936328
6150979922
6094311390
0011772310
1444431474
7535475342
2429333942
2137353742
0236855314
5776671410
7089171340
1268758774
0522652374
0265855252
1480284428
4681314834
0361506506
7288111179
7381167078
4285370778
7561344309
4665586255
0268310661
6584006659
5809724499
1585760100
5411797127
2587940118
6595955999
5811718151
2519792792
1007007007
6485786735
3129662571
5828234371
7418068384
2004202573
7001850567
4544550574
6162762377
2216552561
8588848585
0005504573
1165511665
0542243502
7200017087
7782772078
3433356340
0273851670
0857357087
5394751077
2353973002
0412537642
0988957089
7647224876
6422462494
6552525688
1319190149
7626294888
0730527179
2307792044
3570555887
8698655486
2055555243
0066155565
4617225124
0172631669
9888459264
3003335680
9649929164
2062446245
9595555579
2265551629
7453755455
6713636666
3559093795
4057574755
4438934938
6459987242
7553119373
6457620897
4533010520
7053059383
9273624049
9574313500
4004019930
4364689361
9184363900
9164391419
1579797757
9292090293
4804340434
3083606883
1368761433
4634644334
8058990005
9801610960
5704171540
8868700603
5804655380
8338975450
1304148743
4408643094
2023115320
3443377434
9808087809
4162286219
9100116909
2856416809
6640285929
9713376810
8209517815
1889887809
4448284492
6846444865
0090272059
9506858699
7737377305
3343852895
7196872399
8995358069
4208281069
3207654005
7696690637
7424572475
9969399936
6746860738
0070954790
7222470636
1744290437
6491364696
4466292737
9040852792

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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