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:

0166031835
5930844922
8492757833
2418157693
2275092870
3614114620
7522252272
9992997992
9397537895
4484844833
7472394573
5677670567
6434904396
7727858772
3823553528
6305093562
3044694529
5689608528
0944904527
3299853573
5273273232
1606111616
1678010488
4731813137
9792199119
1696161969
1630100839
4232812390
9776179873
9273156869
5555554552
4484696464
0303693660
2921020910
9078998870
0230653660
5195290472
4472196960
4783423860
5458954422
3936393635
6996998609
9259995570
2969662911
2030332940
4433098975
4088192645
1308192670
1276192900
8185832690
1440186545
9520882505
3400770838
2140386078
4883850604
6540552840
7674486074
0022222208
3633366633
5585000585
0015526051
8712771854
3303352303
6669693336
4447779434
0858071456
0720059856
2510671651
4360821333
6375493333
7506257767
6193793799
0330530305
7854881548
8662116686
7662524783
7896146226
7654241720
6563556336
8950730862
4585146080
8514122646
2415735375
2413228135
8473504586
1579797777
8815288228
3423744438
4514555544
2414144421
5123911191
8120328130
8826728628
4370637906
7051555171
8121988301
4870734023
8876078236
4120702164
8170724778
1348581478
5052450452
3108668011
8812818188
5962776269
5352788102
5912503764
5452416010
1942651149
5048656422
7186063350
2554063198
8635483238
7081088730
2281949667
8685355558
0151411444
0534909535
2281018510
7496447674
5588756287
9227797332
1731171213
0114011403
4186318342
1191076212
9156211203
5281016343
0473698340
5125618333
1656156661
4600061004
4409444440
0746964640
3763333363
0649180533
4646920510
3493159533
4749313317
4453918079

The puzzle

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

4708728704
4171771194
6858484455
7078887077
6644778684
9759074084
9358271107
2386674184
7597121654
0272976157
3388481633
3942092609
3328550663
3942833677
6508984359
3575997595
7348558575
6987961879
8328432844
6502826252
0465508854
7755218844
2239012217
8763275144
3485475894
9596995899
1114512154
7474470444
4828008284
1177117710
8666517591
3143036500
9882527219
5731031258
1428297619
1911996199
6634651634
6552629561
7875117518
4722237200
3390903994
3666643963
4488883498
3606468034
3146551693
0872858494
5554183994
7069181963
9288508014
4130161494
4586081704
2578871984
5868429694
3267672796
7988673634
4494974794
7363323036
5127221257
3368382683
8898789997
3022323023
8387878813
4146046021
8846181616
3373738073
5915036821
8421973013
9752323824
2124833021
8682338073
7655177111
2397494732
0562806555
5690660646
5240754752
5695128423
2692759997
7657683831
5552104777
9690494409
9034193900
3549059394
6898388633
9671277947
3256995595
3598386167
6878944431
9658967289
6642057239
3894153605
0345483540
2009000292
0562656226
6822242826
5448550849
5954650826
7928986546
1019806286
0232352229
8275680829
9990091090
1525522151
8641381346
9308809889
8748177144
9920561234
1548012588
9790168478
8328377644
8328940775
4250141120
2336063633
0567050400
4858988885
4245354443
4868329192
4855320345
4855094126
0847003244
4865269886
3931317349
1012214120
8808010832
0381882330
7777117277
0314612137
6350184942
5897012220
8105582330
4980712849
5572266580
5630744344
1534555654
5676326792
8242362581
5640555065
8584115185
1770270700
9276339962
5132217211

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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