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:

7401514011
0262481061
6945411014
0996019011
5941098006
1962192164
6656116856
1330119013
0840608006
1187181171
9480754703
9985847449
6904595104
6500495865
6239185357
6334933338
0989808990
9505700507
0287427487
6460116466
7979797763
2119221902
7760262717
8899846896
1414114981
8308811702
0491617906
7228924976
2228742996
9023442711
0050582560
0737373018
8445444803
9919145912
8117118972
2586275973
8175445303
8517812913
4915882962
3442472512
7707789370
8446624896
4840488044
7705858474
3339398385
6449854094
1476524075
8948884840
0115334394
8103389344
7298599787
9703309907
3620132333
5024555520
8354956893
8654986506
3002383653
9354519082
7624978469
9024583593
4203755190
7990980660
4596779332
0116248048
5593969943
4216771111
5583955985
4490702970
7805272258
0193909309
6936553995
3738535337
1139811411
6956166161
8851353383
6856340228
1731981059
8938504399
8138125476
1958192951
9205009529
6907060779
3088238383
7509170557
8097777782
3588100906
2007299620
9599715709
3989128847
3008720413
8631826854
8608268156
8871108598
7248158276
9868103246
8608558558
3269161129
9178278428
2831881112
5944555954
9415049039
4257972427
0678686080
7126871877
7659359936
0629924013
7458944722
7159354528
7226290217
4656861185
0276556760
7666777667
1633991696
8861988148
5116955566
8116584502
9171500270
5213977956
7136912236
0816559549
9988986659
4945445994
9177717779
8452342382
3397793737
4883216732
5872846659
0665786759
9335945702
5732946732
5255555525
5476447444
1077071000
3811919181
7751711471
5877922852
3371405974
3071418536
5451730282
5771065541

The puzzle

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

5510180115
0654657506
3777777237
8699038906
3999393599
4599230519
2491887196
3616433236
7977373935
8780758186
5271314137
6066100106
9303493440
3374554355
6611991191
6661585457
3611524005
3203473876
9002172228
3366400321
9147054210
4653125493
2886926490
8303477440
8091815211
1175517152
1414484410
2192125991
4543225243
3116876881
2326139362
1647147171
2750102517
2130434123
4445954444
2657927086
0446915008
2740143311
2630121564
2425980326
4109444004
2169126222
9574359354
3486333673
6391996639
4181322328
2506115203
9489172050
6599993425
3111437688
6801208828
5584225225
9971212917
4836768783
0683778170
9806741094
0573281419
9886209050
6601780281
0846703447
0700170951
8777997387
6551591557
9799930798
3444519345
1196619745
1805890345
4307239558
0623731751
5737414357
9014301993
8650262655
7076117077
8430530508
5481995910
8034167216
5676921675
8080381720
6076353890
8084331520
9934241769
8451354458
8729956168
5452246797
5210876997
5518574458
6698756897
7006660967
7777770778
9545145149
8105524868
7100004517
1670828404
3696574410
2393054544
4445554544
6424426464
3344374438
3676867837
6104008410
2917249001
5914271837
9964167298
5899798289
2970147445
9996799996
5939035353
2874872948
2560162601
9919229129
0884136797
2897876142
8097436541
6838975812
0805236847
6883376837
1166686761
0039936390
7276476742
5091995512
6035748552
7819918689
6677818248
2162248288
3500018202
1116118647
2880888902
3178717388
4742222248
2454542259
1717971379
8881498004
0202092028
5422525124
2449997924
8981071074
2077378309
5591821074
4325572328
3844774129

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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