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:
9111595102
4637704735
9977979195
0584550480
5527890102
1983002432
7082703792
8686279495
7728005400
1376676369
4445045544
0423533054
5044999509
5377526782
1424966245
1448923434
1074594054
4147621550
3876187581
3830188081
6533236232
0520770700
3226767536
0576192548
3803911873
3503777804
9530223574
0443044033
8882484848
0728770278
2219552913
0787014033
6860582238
7915675838
8657215933
5025113944
3227622732
9851798211
0165955569
0242777204
9157760241
9142791617
9852910109
3111772144
0262727362
0375166264
5535397130
4589194953
0568160719
0270333317
4579373555
5185111515
5988454848
2365336636
2641543791
8029588316
8625805428
1016189762
7621516511
1055100515
2846884688
1619219131
8826568866
2507747250
4348143840
8596103734
2306126977
2307777207
4095199909
8340148471
6576455655
2028402222
9971401461
2972477497
2177459860
2181541599
2152551221
2431744216
0488444404
6678446477
9998119991
2676776526
2233239220
5582154518
9099599055
0342879355
4409189020
0174088225
0215159020
5182488281
9043333348
0173773700
7705447075
2561771525
8163724174
0743433692
0503336375
2341382755
2121345111
2706607634
0404438863
5493772663
0838074133
4343337764
6876674164
6464848676
7664947692
3228322833
1041040110
1052305332
2896648296
7090997070
5796890036
7031308170
6391268270
6524100130
3621145532
2816018628
1936061913
5366763766
3633333333
5336307272
7816734259
5636028940
5913757275
0916083957
The puzzle
Given the above hint, what famous landmark do the numbers below refer to?
2553553253
1817781370
9010109125
7147170751
1750659775
1267150370
2341000221
3305770256
8710289200
2391691922
8689638287
7313241374
5056419057
1212718227
0171091017
0519449351
4347334374
8114919482
9080600869
1486551758
8345338455
2874994224
1344527833
2346925816
1304814609
9476319903
9064694942
8997936863
6742838855
5776719383
9752239831
8288939832
6191199601
3353318353
9898339685
6899736769
3522109537
0687429827
6817562740
0391612007
8118318836
0552502500
0804042045
2882229228
3378662387
4622122186
5484944448
0834330834
2411312241
4692368992
2332385220
2324353961
0780923346
2431343464
5649338310
0328537207
9994498310
9322696212
3331138310
1922093202
3706337607
4288838742
0012886120
3129467943
5068277193
3476031810
6466477342
4888111814
6746767496
7974277942
7710117370
6763335653
3730570537
8753621536
8508087329
8303565673
4576774777
3158555888
8703283077
8333443434
8300030353
2382765846
2887707459
4079384088
1372381893
9973339939
1352711251
2257822281
2882128182
4079840874
4058948406
8426684862
4864886688
9370997797
4028542120
4866974998
9558966143
8266548950
4550927232
3949126149
4474584574
5555885552
7777777276
3012674559
5178983575
8694883134
8847924735
1926824276
6857618826
0177604040
6973982101
9377729397
1070977000
5677777774
9827997278
6373963969
0959606696
1435825256
7131306704
9820832778
6027343202
6465755465
9157757719
2020808022
1807710072
7031337701
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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