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:
3769993739
2354655362
9146399667
6533773533
9746328747
9764907659
3344974526
3712979021
4766982430
2333373032
3775371335
5979797850
5033353509
6056653535
6723773839
3346953000
7974673831
3883177537
7877072078
3787827388
5157771755
2006532560
5058076588
3782972008
4802476470
4122222461
5324821578
0555111055
2929326931
1479794797
4254115024
8496894355
5772856051
1686919377
5438219076
5310519035
8429192304
4635278182
5673610913
8690388027
4495394254
8620462448
5623163216
8475677468
5139111151
0047473205
8760486674
0078291240
5487161725
5318151813
0778470070
5060259265
8026330326
0487448488
6664397027
7064505597
8533910323
9710215527
2521315323
7797769877
9922897582
5332225033
9197990597
4930532667
1101560004
1221457689
2927457548
4404330647
8853885378
6076557069
2555432564
3358367387
2644626460
8956569584
0580029850
9331994133
5876294080
5013722463
3474564562
1070229930
7897664434
5552622525
2119022008
4432642232
8498999988
5412928462
5116353522
5442600848
8196637014
5758069537
6455458542
7673666373
3088228037
1707575710
1627658743
3661768772
1738221718
9891668377
7739450502
0254554045
9983499347
1713711377
7387577377
1917760230
7780555151
1450517319
1287525464
8354936387
2506767057
7777787477
0444040941
9440194130
2618297746
3908147551
3953380430
7063597476
0295987141
2495758449
1913159846
8541297544
1481056845
9452996248
7577151796
8548548535
2997797729
8444499844
The puzzle
Given the above hint, what famous landmark do the numbers below refer to?
0391755577
5688220064
5085456250
8216348556
5605955650
8218787178
0591299259
9081310036
9386898883
0142550246
7123471828
1194012764
9122962110
7521917959
7922552779
9194044919
2142026220
0173400711
2398728723
7268334273
3563766653
5329555552
5294729207
5268562747
5599304245
1323769640
7399700937
6465436897
6914442807
8486725384
3570144773
3416134114
4025404522
0580808508
6964774777
2479778474
9648112112
1199721910
3066402140
4977018112
4292191142
2021202710
3333224943
1110616110
9687718767
5968386883
1381611111
4487744797
9768777766
5984728992
9387625653
1367742057
4761740581
1347709248
5695587596
0777474007
4424242524
1550530855
3326877004
8657774526
5333274967
2021887066
5466484094
8692112882
4192999999
6446764667
4979179947
8946142769
6171798219
6376494843
8692569590
4976904523
9090200829
3583636827
1144221417
9334993624
7370490617
6535601629
7387251824
7455530417
1290726419
2164621717
6648143821
6123913961
7673166963
1974317974
7113610731
6661466666
6743977933
4228124224
4186766020
9137784299
3263873232
9207762248
9126592212
8237888337
4663773676
3849049034
8203482081
0408070858
3676383267
5855585598
5866556508
7574855203
8906557857
1808206598
8616585233
8264385868
9771138631
5751061646
2501098136
6294438935
8656338636
8555868345
6441198641
0250525930
5966661695
8164746678
4187313886
1010101111
6179776679
8068169058
8078802009
1184606274
8170757040
1184857121
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.
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