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:
6660119046
3353713758
1109131120
7777737307
0735039168
1280182708
5833437526
0018533007
9565631327
9110669190
1469446684
8250920995
1980331939
1460907705
9850276427
9150238461
1880927135
8807434944
1298920304
7891117308
7254696478
0378924451
7294111449
7337977939
0801688061
1538758116
9378089983
0232838202
7443734734
3723004327
2581151257
1394438204
1531535702
7850431092
9619034004
9312325707
2349335384
2387189965
2384128896
8334368923
8585358383
9037109771
2213931922
2374476374
0349500953
2320162764
5599063493
3283865902
8701853739
6975955793
4999662949
3222723730
0043663404
8864985469
0932926431
8934242716
2938210120
8031906549
0162919662
0931913991
9084107801
4137237143
8838083800
4757737549
2002280622
5049909566
6899115986
7734637529
3870530686
7682839536
0033089646
7603342933
8621415400
8397582450
8734540798
5697301186
5697556965
7694479684
5331513333
8708333077
8335999998
9911946728
9311936914
8377762253
6978785767
6368333838
9371776133
8910611968
9116961619
3681383363
0070072040
0830220382
7179119773
4399539995
5785419980
1315519314
0162860372
8392119994
8318010350
9777973779
4446544560
5552995295
3953553046
6936690440
5018693476
3749730478
9156753566
5820233790
3834313465
3238642653
0481843490
3952094390
9999399390
3331413463
6063034660
8293992353
2829942896
4085308504
3914515141
3703437413
8936936699
6054948406
4918375393
4053160591
6054912195
3755364830
The puzzle
Given the above hint, what famous landmark do the numbers below refer to?
1790209610
7603993060
4209409090
7312512557
5668545221
5599589786
7208936939
6209197068
4560273127
3355975397
8422842844
3753584735
7477734873
6948415835
8550144845
6924474738
8367432845
1999542895
7777541765
8944984948
8933338081
5568115186
6331074768
8938875441
8866784748
3930948487
1558487968
9700781279
7211540051
1706298531
7956968434
1218912212
7900777097
4951041991
4902222206
9756555656
8858888572
4736346783
5645560955
1222152123
6454050073
5474402545
1586369973
0461042922
9912140172
7867577856
8273167357
8934865120
0694095359
6556595356
6988667879
7959975999
8084585050
5727270527
2891929189
3499007993
3694994346
3932392299
2632300413
3890385780
3437942245
5632900577
2131741717
6466565564
4799939749
7175775674
9339797398
2183277388
6000369780
8997665648
0000967594
6380709344
5368586726
2095982323
9596353426
6076650477
7633336347
4847787447
0790910793
4350253423
0702902976
2577581712
1841815452
8101788215
8852495615
2220779252
2256621655
8756667758
1891998115
5454485462
4386822374
8003212964
3062558314
9130232678
2778332278
2444224644
8011888918
6612362318
4456459464
0022626903
2914023014
8887778821
2944994827
5782473927
1537703027
8811384839
4532724817
4982028929
3393793733
8227214772
1411114616
5611116154
0241093736
0316153992
1362013832
4157614793
0812813834
1490744004
7618561711
3601861806
7495195799
4691769942
3811715833
7815112962
7611197903
1616184167
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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