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:
2701447071
4988794988
2779272972
5538775558
5981727272
2708831296
4809140351
2539433580
5801497842
9027076656
4184004411
3496573611
8034874970
6269996276
4531673615
5718871581
0001004310
9590270952
7213522321
2833131219
4509669055
5734111751
4534164204
4833590052
4734585254
4514535966
4869831688
9116699516
1335353313
4891929814
5010110106
0058895516
9049120110
5634015180
3393459374
4433859306
4798595471
0368147489
9303611727
3398567476
9563599656
5708658885
6187565676
3348133336
0793199033
9780555059
9522655226
6426426446
3106717307
8764743262
9404880250
6524603882
9326613294
9726666153
2207127887
0290817929
2529887240
4260567730
6580150809
4295040442
2023333032
0267552265
2509805008
3000334800
8894859845
6866886338
0021535250
0035855238
0682335208
5260244508
5329586355
9861039860
0053503053
0668000006
0774447700
5207959902
0063542443
0973970028
5067098602
0778413824
0053999227
5112611624
6261112112
8094660084
8100118808
8154129974
5012162736
8092331312
8190644010
8153663011
6624662644
2222221212
5489489244
9399939979
5723432114
1097422246
3719422219
9214921674
8125669244
8610150575
8162272173
7042875064
7552944066
3360136031
0512210215
7654777406
7801800810
8040940080
6438072378
8578155535
0538031404
6675325747
2571357532
6238002220
8475447408
6738686673
0603460000
6289166251
6275875278
8370707877
8947978984
8377127686
6689496592
6389844117
8579737097
8243979724
The puzzle
Given the above hint, what famous landmark do the numbers below refer to?
6706041570
3910685958
7087476539
9579455570
5793976959
1157551571
1151391530
5558885539
4434344432
4884554628
0585004556
6366666653
0083536805
8117632656
2203904726
8022186553
1966766765
4894506668
2342212063
0252317463
2567614560
7037417218
1478514578
7226772413
2236621263
1111111516
6009697060
8859999995
3484003430
3956056351
4140331043
4146342903
8186989759
1846055425
3884006903
3159380011
6741000676
9257275892
1447999494
5388158851
6381186361
5458093469
3368950721
6740171930
6081957851
8011770138
7396593376
3377447733
1924192911
5394728122
5024726903
8071567492
3674720346
5076437879
0705919540
6058538743
4797991470
6155921601
4758955498
0195999691
5554554454
7075850575
6397566366
2573185613
5073187250
0175540334
0806789496
5113755517
0873300303
2575992759
9007557007
1716171678
5789751441
8785198537
7389184427
5711305045
5282758222
1819719177
7783337763
8343228484
9481111111
6162212569
3348483343
5414848485
2221118026
9656678069
5546643525
7710178549
2430583976
4514281983
0008716132
3876838053
9213558535
3137050193
0020514005
6969656690
0301030178
3311337133
0008508550
8851919991
4607160712
9643353949
2016010783
1550510795
9696866989
3555459345
3118113812
8196996913
5440675508
0542799171
3376765671
7033079604
8873793578
2556665603
5282581275
6001101601
9488479984
6555960665
3490190393
3671661761
7840770787
3571902957
7071173150
6077924886
3650760606
7495969004
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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