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:

8033767326
7072650950
2892260457
2073981505
8472740018
4493993433
2334992332
8832784738
7093939339
9177676761
1454530263
6889034661
6049910216
6883920466
1551610651
5912518915
2699620096
0022220251
0006330467
8488144681
4789128464
0865374870
4983104654
0719772413
1729180622
1119111111
8649144569
4763747477
5926366229
0485656845
4654533846
5062191242
4881893082
8595891947
6714032047
5745595247
8188393086
5858992858
5299191052
3226330632
8950562664
6049833626
4612912266
9374593263
7455492613
2202992308
6318633618
9696662696
6950490764
2323223223
7539252229
1319881839
7147878747
5493645656
2725357622
5525303054
7445672447
1349876044
7733397521
2543485335
5934191919
1665056005
0417414137
4906949969
7590550597
7935569244
1617998232
1995526548
5960575846
0530807106
3064851396
3833686601
2132917793
3813637220
2128123773
3134913337
7824118482
2688688282
7562665752
3063800630
8655000159
6064330367
9927440049
2438410103
5213010359
0001910009
1492512549
4042242357
3261236213
9909808199
3110033010
6744946496
0238668085
2452555222
8496996999
6442907429
8751908612
3452940874
2430648909
0238624244
6588865634
1889858914
8159751581
8179725207
6198329051
8108778711
1875871885
6186911618
2599399596
8349234894
2075679938
8277051990
7681159837
8334575590
8867671986
6110556120
5221871280
3395389537
4998945998
9900001936
5365690599
0857998669
0953441012
2070676065
2961490092
8519998591
0182080019
3436676437
6506000562
3656443665
5892752978
7717116217
6888184188
0360613605
3003772083
4676613005
3460982175
5946882687
9870382963
0737276188

The puzzle

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

0221512151
4658944594
1830383813
8819338133
2166519511
2630565086
1836303741
0251577797
0611361465
8899550882
4845949959
8194389194
6724875748
3857959898
6806996666
8846386124
6807316344
4841982860
4845904419
6897991206
3758139033
6209881299
7556031063
0338649059
4204035254
9393930839
9610621069
3963346293
3556535034
5911559551
9269385363
2166023373
4543077361
1895287275
2866075473
5446775495
3297222379
9322323389
6637687361
3535525973
0612764023
5018728104
7628758171
6317741731
9623767881
7683994833
9617009766
4028402844
0352735227
6010411011
0044403464
5542115612
0401540510
6266663928
7311331721
1501810711
8412900912
9349291762
6347765722
0554611522
6473150558
6666610528
7510357489
7453658858
8671813429
5555550588
5246353426
3889338229
5969658169
7507717158
1673352589
4070399256
6053732835
5040364100
0340188907
2159775911
4033343346
1670111071
6049666964
0381383813
6995454699
6678166669
7761677167
4798279828
8276998868
6796905078
4778211934
7968229929
6626993303
4996970384
1514659798
1385119761
9443588767
7125809027
8671858728
7951754197
4299884729
5158058021
9778843768
9605509965
3965470994
5333439451
5367135105
9777668891
5463160549
5368151811
3277477727
0735663035
9163413933
0467889786
3670879684
5114506865
8050729162
1012674683
3772094669
4382374382
4969679865
8262692689
4104508154
6606006663
9778265771
6896228696
6874234641
6804351550
1858145589
1271311127
6818181616
9854244858
5726252222
3396293328
5488348345
7717667177
7401244262
4127414244
8623933663
7127908051
7627974813
7481430599
8457363947
4421463809

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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