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:
9265851626
9611216161
4412044141
3829779977
9869946538
9655708084
7420070466
7012722825
4421845006
2113312364
6159165911
6966161096
0111111081
0962692069
5207911391
6254212911
3714361496
9296092011
6071051256
7486052596
4246952096
1820831016
9059359396
8028502508
2522132158
6521651216
8889189015
1181111118
9857272298
1615415951
7293191933
2113141119
1213177185
1893291054
7117113887
2647105581
0199690961
0390880000
7238822308
3001310310
9271329126
9009803201
0031836576
2090808913
9030016681
0490359403
3213339912
7821769187
6666336663
6616812863
8835756582
3585669687
7345569183
7200039983
0353480067
7754091763
4487060768
4754308695
4380131614
2753357223
5754474545
7366077770
1477444777
0167890733
5368682200
5265797625
5295729104
1466714446
5398897388
5282828882
5667756766
3165666566
3462767444
9956444595
7673367667
1501115015
8562780393
1553166934
9674779447
7663179621
3955390841
9663715308
3279068324
8810795378
1129095303
1578117108
9954095402
7757775347
2222228327
6663565373
6115550611
0205250002
9658869986
6146774164
0286709210
0106525033
9185215961
6145869057
6142731801
5245644094
8789620756
5275117453
5942145334
5342115142
1285115522
8922628969
9795555599
8571588981
8724678746
0269590106
7940190004
9072190709
9272103574
8073577310
8869192063
9094136238
9849114909
1363090158
4103630955
6339530295
5784230238
4529594558
2373773237
8828932958
9209990243
6555156195
The puzzle
Given the above hint, what famous landmark do the numbers below refer to?
3640064444
1010800080
3210913210
1013730070
1140984736
1013701407
3216032807
3040880858
4620100370
0960697026
9022630498
7028390924
5750941824
5951599595
0351950921
9702679092
0460660040
7020320022
3255772413
7349710483
4870173463
7843475478
1137753417
5540555473
2282002628
2720670261
3338577583
4529554399
2557205662
0127907230
9117986446
9855950599
1527575555
2128028020
4619224441
0457666640
8737779463
8830259902
5520094787
9530749364
4587758477
3417044443
8820989280
8180300128
9730220979
7522922527
0484644366
0608700780
8132113213
0702706192
8552571408
0424745203
7604956133
8659184425
6462862462
8503787033
7255959557
1746174161
8406943832
8456805656
1046773735
8542942807
8452733803
3471321679
0152491024
1132621644
5121851824
3303336043
3976396379
5526225626
2402551264
4444444844
9906611193
2903892183
4393311146
3939670826
7777771193
6956252416
2172711872
2142194123
7870770880
3442744732
1293727323
5528115215
8854338854
1498344115
1508137185
5242188981
3891140738
5873702619
9745493796
3410833607
1697203582
8561652692
2398193102
5939653697
5757334576
0027702773
7758738785
0784432211
2504616894
6818971668
2944504008
2504550040
6844446484
2814442416
6754656764
0988555989
2994899292
5914858138
9088300309
2359555953
9986303647
5096849566
9914098603
9916078899
9946308105
5728857878
2914332311
2898688987
5388138111
2988185502
5912819394
2328144896
2394148649
5318140319
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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