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:

3913208215
7819813795
9888270985
3898787898
3388943050
7343977737
3997239233
2159882222
2883433242
3818730738
0860181670
5558252855
5535665506
5505555902
0222777202
0545675502
4019571602
7255381672
9745953200
3322351602
4781831091
6347731088
6538054085
3572231083
0046254086
4843334483
3881031088
8418681461
5550555520
9985979896
0692026006
2823832287
8999929899
3687887362
3555518537
7524019507
4057911099
4551887267
8046416899
1356622202
5141991119
8799798797
6440909944
3735119355
4834934893
3199141442
5435959799
4439031514
3739705657
6135159417
3767755318
5099850528
9002059628
5569922602
7069788818
5709575555
1565016465
1032811381
9798797989
7067967776
1140413429
2373634489
0106933421
6104714789
9988813649
4473113441
3335333549
1888811688
3222323329
4344344943
0065050005
1447444117
8951019015
9769559998
1157151111
1957586006
1441027096
8047157047
0909474530
1055060446
8084648844
5455225952
4480684044
7746564774
0888338008
7488543330
5786264552
3450267067
7088530273
7750375199
5653436553
5523933293
2153523532
5224929227
4044334404
2253984102
3154944812
5653500142
5554474800
5653456152
0593099363
9352488193
6219988699
1246680499
1994296284
3999398398
9999286259
6004480464
3993399393
1168181189
0155155601
4323322293
6707770675
5755015870
3975732957
0965452270
8534725670
0716315870
7480322654
9268132875
6262662652
0070004790
8090050780
2292112902
0733337036
2223614002
7573252950
2439100938
8086507090
0259502730
1797803495
3101851156
1803418968
1712758781
1817762004
3691799719
1817888811
1702500750
6212821218
1157411211

The puzzle

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

4011910314
5866868665
1451151445
2005125210
4318534433
2411185416
4303986086
4851156535
5401901921
2015109323
4674971719
1676976107
3602306288
1624975736
9604303648
1674979479
6524926649
9138938911
4601333213
3706979336
8071477925
1488246849
7288749967
9298350853
1871328723
4508330950
1278222282
1407701704
7895494849
9081799090
1512551551
1142442441
7605447404
0852223850
9962599995
9665588101
9802585196
1502405613
1802560925
8162435075
5644844794
1485174399
4256894349
3065892254
6644431740
5035594750
4444444396
2292332249
5939301395
1794991744
5439609011
6248703312
3436095708
4836200712
6446895032
2333993332
4575505714
3603660837
7177929789
1006169001
9252231458
9738551855
3891266115
3748695565
9598540187
6841555645
9597499994
2228828828
9353291953
3732233732
2260734340
3930322887
5370403125
0674379275
0564721666
5564754457
2139391332
3369036930
0970409000
5673163772
9040709079
7615915675
7569772795
6756878688
8307930099
7710907829
6649828383
7067794923
9860973991
8750770507
6630036002
1412143821
8196891686
2419192941
9979939296
9536433906
7844039926
4637431922
8616349836
5939843681
8199178886
0719337536
0057110446
1597543680
5711634530
8117778174
6665939536
4034643640
1668894886
4848810438
4289629498
2214308365
8884331366
1789667823
4426368096
1429393212
8834544348
4756666564
4219348441
0884484088
2719772727
9937993995
0932629260
1886768681
6920332929
1989769933
1119971540
9880675820
0822734061
9939607796
0414668710
2144619154
7402135579
4402557204
1125144164
7142911749
2424124210
0413646311
1794541145
9305193191

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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