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:

3368729531
8076199978
6542422458
2283824301
2468219898
8011316836
9411999471
8005884508
4992429394
5858222158
2115921219
3217671262
4441044043
1744444444
0479330303
0215362526
4477677074
3749613229
8471039404
4175953945
2720378603
5537393076
5827333131
2502320697
7900147692
7520350727
8532052333
5896157665
2907392799
5902329393
3683331099
3783993130
3233830550
6684934048
6383725926
0334330033
3683966338
4929799327
3784488833
6783866886
6042030224
6738030229
0247696979
9414020071
0232140450
6224111443
6042666224
9217227227
0738680377
9175000199
6769726475
5143114935
9902999082
0900900900
1979796971
7193496075
7476690971
4945720072
0495396972
4523002435
0790120088
0510255005
1922173085
3040487723
1771677077
5755715725
6767773672
8443041008
9727527597
5033380583
3732387560
4722247850
4622464895
6258687710
3006322226
0702372027
6950356391
3238888832
3024622333
4606446406
5753373555
8706181766
5287989896
3347646343
9322939393
5327305257
8753323460
0706647130
9207125461
3203159430
2720919069
8457532992
2276639477
0753422467
0535239490
8999939467
5262575266
9099919090
9999229992
7254992475
7195697785
1934051204
1879827202
1104261124
6685693252
7671557167
2225527245
4614551324
5753763752
2120191202
8848225149
1240325067
5443328925
5795402275
5471724886
5441771141
5258355878
1809619091
9790449049
8773287888
7125676112
0113586859
0189376193
4892976109
2429474919
7611174116
8434389843
2999040992
6687686645
9050551009
6161759501
7910349809
5819965769
8715652584
7701252086
8055555809
9441141079
9845889984
1200262501
1826612786

The puzzle

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

9248243407
2514501641
7638931725
2604244369
2454782669
4538954994
2253737227
5214252404
9454545544
7605550707
3707275773
6065335665
3990909909
2174772777
2663333236
2090946979
6764330819
2709982887
2105962458
2965747653
7606353996
4457203376
2455953601
2766998053
5935520996
5509330605
2437974343
4765272777
8909303009
7756557767
9670379867
1343131133
6640800666
9862982292
8220111212
9640968860
1640901524
8645845580
8640972885
9640828265
7575550907
8488886078
9909390370
9110010519
3310771043
8506411070
1969611378
4926551348
3876890545
0511080307
0496737527
8699705199
8479560180
4272834675
9999948528
8974799998
4647848646
9236728636
0469996999
8490584484
9944997449
3433449323
8858788527
2362462432
9334336834
8740037449
8697092344
2180768427
5833808827
5082847849
7743313192
3848111798
2081388118
0599083106
2903893618
1881191818
1336613663
8488089608
3327003712
1699991196
4581614451
3598499548
1489698954
4771414471
5335155333
4471108466
3385434363
1470412038
4571694515
1578119980
9454004550
9626969626
1930931199
7647664636
9922992999
9624902950
9938935110
7922986213
9946904777
7640928365
3566561365
0819696960
5578656565
0094699004
3803538030
5806520839
3896690870
3879370019
3598619837
3873552715
8356666563
4281781218
1138111113
6389369393
7264972409
4369129822
4137914382
4389164376
4186741174
8389702375
2540023330
6532782606
2122064390
2292310852
9532144147
2032132322
6292393296
2160006001
6584686455
9525795754
7958619630
9980869420
9400864973
1411483845
9826389943
9486339663
9858448448
7920627727
2386837886
1811481414

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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