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:

5525557653
8888888882
2888555268
7220626075
5777597851
1807858052
2036797052
6175187882
6402968862
9422788858
8644284422
3955155516
2638008230
6430140000
7402330244
2442144461
6438047149
8930221102
6602198784
8338279694
7387767518
7937890338
9355332068
3384443768
5499636618
8936336938
8849693688
0109090010
8222842338
7656567566
6390446406
5430349033
0669690696
5054355345
0307979037
5000949765
5650933452
0339692498
5330952990
5857965381
9064969469
6769670666
3995195995
9933893333
2033111030
2963163644
9163961443
2963987625
9093968273
9933196986
5207452054
2992492922
4607273424
4620144214
5164333531
4907322718
5100384773
2903243043
4107408089
4690431272
4075079494
9073588786
8875602754
4871076500
9053528142
4793197493
5825025525
9053653692
8075685758
3875555833
2922997922
7471876418
6923393869
0507555037
0150557100
7068257930
7646093102
1914096412
8149193809
7104798800
9637373930
3791663167
2002888082
8869888988
1434731141
9069787430
9462133610
2704381561
3434886838
8639723240
4570213653
6280507951
7032308658
2397819694
0541018654
9866118656
5717167951
5563113654
2208208298
0336603663
8051822173
5925015412
8929041490
0696128946
5299100596
0025115111
0926006320
8619881119
5021000010
3293443332
6575657657
6471666674
8323838336
4715777711
2111919112
2525766492
6771873320
6571699016
8125511277
8715613918
4932572277
1588212999
3489509977
7387786998
1112036204
7769719879
7705006578
0922782907
9191331991
0000646204
0861599210
1489921510
8439798589
3421397810
5540699500
1912991010
9993919193
9129595212
1175117551
8889028809

The puzzle

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

0202402421
6493409436
2234342303
6387378304
1121716127
0769019406
7290842301
1595342324
0690101336
6983409433
4191141111
3637863743
3313333333
4197697994
8097790809
8097744609
3133085025
8697712719
8391750367
4391399551
4444444944
9944193414
7117771718
2121313612
0408730774
2626074918
6873613944
1142034974
8749033814
9677011614
1225251404
3493051134
6008581534
1203459535
8737891171
0995599505
6928986932
1117151121
0320808233
7994799274
8338888314
7471773071
9389010983
0232242035
8882592815
0874412835
7815642215
9868712883
2702042015
3720410035
4341678043
0745870593
0677376229
8080736643
4029276286
9599554494
6638238629
4248646284
9977779523
1434671046
9897299229
4588228828
0427078022
8708607677
2941512112
8587583521
0721274450
4598271839
9721623299
0878095132
5732352335
7492777924
2735256732
5545655644
8879999897
7745303771
8735040889
8772293816
7872284826
8792270321
9998969893
3012016053
3305531350
8686438546
8098191208
7525411253
5653818851
3199338006
2129491296
9742339840
9002020098
9725625376
3770570530
7389987931
3505330005
1573870078
2935630598
7572720508
1430733936
7942880936
7271577975
8914849888
9204540944
6938663636
5828158828
7938568132
7208525101
6878521107
6838561176
7224975010
1125120942
4145614706
1925909207
2197956282
4947988900
6546994614
2145646545
4987144971
1525885515
4249949444
6650576248
0413767026
1644966928
0362567951
0727417947
2826936298
7736317346
5577567757
5775657926
8954474951
7384737787
9449669696
5147041454
6153436346
7202558022
9453767639
5347476990
5444672333
5145444688
7347586879

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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