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:

0833491273
2556011108
0258823177
0160853177
2824495877
9737993273
8388553878
2220106271
1077515107
9161061103
9566347954
9656651043
0553189246
0502159842
7163760771
7566356685
6819776986
9558656859
0163113600
0604104440
0287491995
9600696133
9282448281
7287122888
6882162753
6280990989
9473677466
2185625535
0807448488
8672122181
5952039959
1972892052
9951135646
9256028611
9251700322
1357775537
5951555955
4272825472
6551056651
9956496999
0517919698
5581832246
5691587792
3461782763
0264239748
6622919762
6333687693
7738832748
9966619026
7775792772
4230024307
0879174901
5856693935
3745334915
0407436931
3330993903
4999434397
5145331335
1441194411
9877076908
7798134649
7714188122
7592540638
8918619715
7774129671
8582999288
4724110474
7916999911
3978699897
7298178729
6284779322
5112517048
5178494618
0773114110
8365477618
7777777067
5010044810
5101419540
9229696322
1678717668
9354634955
3077887088
3140333343
8412777214
9704775090
9412746268
1170800968
9702623667
3117627999
3107606713
6311119116
7059597799
7032637767
5292652625
0889599800
7231128200
0392551885
6811643925
0931602360
6059598153
8546602348
7326088118
8730507891
0141488265
7438837313
3311333114
2592202895
8868668888
0700630643
6867787361
1598896080
7530933382
3397296086
2857507366
3657837080
6368996318
9343933394
8804087780
6660999066
2385858382
0160775837
6186874024
5234488627
5253874864
4661474758
8574774568
7507474057
4719474829
8318188130
8646785764
0686922741
7771822787
2739744137
4461441840
6092612730
5363515635
4419944911
4989089640
2778722737
8888841880

The puzzle

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

9664999966
8685985568
2986060272
7589655787
9078550778
7066904926
3989936600
7568992701
2684007825
2686981465
5500103581
7866968379
5342528458
0061970691
1744174719
0643073391
0246263291
1219468719
1087323751
6009068391
7997000397
8929669982
1458450144
6345363564
1312732271
6239853267
4383803344
2529203175
7916263367
2167452982
6445114673
8510019953
1942539361
2465619176
6521479973
1565519556
5115414560
1631310363
7718535178
1992779971
4493936249
0885085608
7730173710
0004504576
5332370323
7461475278
8867085373
8250194323
6788503626
8337874218
9659888559
7510441000
3886933388
7594245458
4277334273
9599967568
3580236115
9504276104
4680935910
4899983539
9412760886
5544085765
9884563431
8018520533
8587767458
5842555445
9486044860
0858780708
8517050651
5474677776
9786067646
3986022660
8751467584
0225325143
3606655620
6544554033
5525635526
5546410564
0677767640
6426622486
3339913393
6622637624
9598556958
7797775790
3494772649
2491413693
7797135324
9155113324
3794706749
1397777753
5869494460
2902185134
2757407314
9849168621
3967145924
9449111149
3362113111
5857177778
2999449124
2719111792
9161029110
4726476264
2222242220
3978973896
1044919840
2267616844
4987046290
8904270140
1336619890
3786826826
8732278392
4072774720
9139661191
3242429384
0710770981
9516078920
2183869921
1891328121
4082371726
0091929391
7383477438
9555295263
4234034072
8979738779
3915351630
6536677060
3921678679
2086971042
9919234672
1340255473
9053339509
0404449075
4244202974
1318881348
9916996404
3632899449
8241159079
1830209904
4334641578
2838096405

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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