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:
5057351857
7449553623
4531659837
8588893232
5525351237
2242423432
0648664803
2382959826
6727993627
9525995992
8411818848
7348283353
3409799933
8440728838
7349462832
7518889103
9410407094
9544486849
1990401954
1646444166
9298932889
0400390030
8818490882
0616691850
8866445760
5152204086
7856335030
8921095123
0524908164
0524312385
4918785083
0514955594
6538063065
6926323623
4464746444
8925697652
4960097747
7223775993
1613290705
5218894149
7877774748
6522265129
9397397773
5898789957
7096610695
4667364377
1797697761
1252421524
5134535655
5614904771
5072483329
1011353108
5767328318
1057524058
0145173352
3910597352
6307671955
2866097552
7255571552
3333333342
2621003162
4842994328
7785777055
4293736803
1706772638
8569359953
9509728432
7215337501
4986369366
8568565858
1509650596
9790779000
8442722982
2782488824
2856484658
3296559669
8496748447
8356040071
3456716711
3472435370
2792517549
0970952512
0960897312
2895131529
2979306439
2995599529
0679111679
3193313339
7969875997
7870667860
7868586775
1305839055
7349999393
4639934639
4839967602
0548939192
7308912363
0448881182
0365581746
0666336360
1168481166
2333032333
4652996552
0362320864
1535331741
0536442294
0536479312
1666080277
8427581692
7445698692
8903726370
0975256697
6898958696
2229776392
9117791697
7777288572
7985927898
7291441923
9388775634
5962044023
1629076603
0995795703
4921242921
3220374023
2333396333
9119691603
The puzzle
Given the above hint, what famous landmark do the numbers below refer to?
5310665887
9167571287
1157464076
9606091476
5282551482
4447474277
6663161666
9191051099
4480895084
1944741711
7234243237
6024322436
0429559210
7045385757
7945533257
6534323121
0955218220
0434396927
9339482349
7979776529
8661868178
4823333298
3184836629
4017673278
5432832598
9100883659
6418183248
8597749587
2074040472
3121030291
1121715713
5612619591
3257900293
5567549215
0901065797
2946837275
4332184988
8763041853
8453653516
8454140200
8453115484
5704000020
5032652665
3955139553
4964044096
7978668747
1318411341
5940640455
0922110221
5929129544
0978634714
5920147361
0918621617
5975646047
3035117053
2562662566
9807090870
1918159951
3199817073
9963492823
7975595720
8670569553
5650217570
1206331060
1057590828
9709245215
9741343397
5268555588
9889449094
9557225252
8701331700
1041100411
9429299800
5236994559
7525894548
4276430549
5569939579
6000610680
0099090509
7744444746
3833839838
2903993999
1347517513
5561056005
3488333883
6968505854
2807938317
1408045671
2987300866
3481904370
3254914628
3061216938
7366233079
3371617649
3164313647
4977497674
8990404929
3662036028
6636365636
9499505523
1591408978
4019569250
5432741423
9476576695
0539993503
3212512123
4091705141
5209425029
2057602502
5330232200
2401444404
9960593995
5307569137
2472513987
2070571644
2634840317
2000872857
8888328527
4320228487
3199620326
9187239020
4464931490
7003808387
6520625026
3757730577
7282229278
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.
Post a comment