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:

7042590103
9044114700
3462675569
7072609570
0063102223
3941339131
0452922040
7042102042
6073666660
9464343954
6652362736
0167960960
0000100000
4047107711
2501315020
0607923332
4090355430
0552376220
6001374002
6051949477
4854555645
2444944244
6735535537
4110811108
9387398779
4380968324
9310828000
4944903897
4147570784
6130926525
7398997377
4939688204
3821925587
8398664490
8826740616
4425959424
8099990909
5328636326
8931982899
7836763386
1791956817
1213172587
5781897824
6789653590
3337670493
9577353897
9497972594
1777776730
6662567125
4393090413
7097909576
8563583565
3066663560
6444486445
7163139616
4515036575
3119539546
5911436545
3608263526
6979333460
1197541907
9180124615
3400708077
2185514782
3499763489
9455995999
4309809398
2197111279
3180718380
9592559919
8258151238
1615515460
3360343005
5115517515
9996996949
7158811965
7908342049
3608613015
4300415465
5287457435
1629861899
4293841127
1214954372
4019654870
6669121381
1697117671
6024866629
1869118911
4811918811
3213883338
1678989717
7811313587
2626626816
7893339708
0988931809
1822236788
6236484817
0506939817
3625813508
0980329809
8255997619
0076192717
4491297877
7057692617
4338891283
7772397253
5474564557
2277972779
1112891681
7717757117
8429629249
7948891949
5376437466
6161464616
2573153725
8129146242
6571188191
4323137272
7361412909
2371674174
1524048503
1665537422
6668790794
8713490090
8236830432
0434330304
1227571522
7497497494
8367848630
7379997773
2869096906
5928228292
9175559651
1024545245
2013312332
9024360940
2028294240
5028082586
9814086315
2059016957

The puzzle

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

1401212111
7303530073
0054040054
9629799723
6974774744
6404785610
6401240682
0009044056
6351545750
3304512740
5392494999
2214142214
0463530569
3413141431
1742974112
2393584287
1392525518
3414997286
3762939828
0813501062
7188484887
1445774554
2205405245
5536776355
3238732243
5238728838
3276796792
2245788113
5406488266
2238434731
6444309451
2599383825
2456919964
6513931660
6553302145
9593935939
2451142115
6546366440
2514314443
2396296936
7409960565
4684065596
4124458902
4020906396
4089988078
7009197907
7628027078
4431447343
1880991109
4684666484
7568257766
0192001025
6704343333
5115455545
4549594595
6504523464
0505488770
0744068054
0129435044
6162264620
5358656535
0821722081
6248426240
3819593898
8823533328
6821769917
0843663371
3359554984
3758735615
0328546197
1487788147
6766066666
8401665184
9872877292
2277332272
1781364112
8476763661
9486778975
0271810392
1461838406
3179761018
4795245420
7379091492
7789611521
5121232721
8899110398
2422241721
5152065022
0150036510
4222982429
3478364873
1123313827
7677557607
8262625628
8411553198
3936014128
9102653608
0164527728
2398455673
0855824877
2233275753
2500532733
7384572383
4086570398
4928875857
7875555878
3333353353
5558532655
6799960797
8776775786
6609228154
5619593791
3412798297
2583000223
5302520455
2500112022
3583539835
6632222326
5915755157
6309030609
3339334333
5672995676
7105151055
2433003034
2989399892
2605163073
5389351888
5682132864
2873380611
7309310466
8808464237
1436854640
8552438132
1914886236
2340854997
5933334550
4481284142
2828728237
6599956990
3366663236

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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