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:

0917786080
7931685036
8392621050
0526176627
3732611080
7444171744
5906016950
4840948039
5885885586
6020225027
9221984418
6685085906
6933424291
7903431411
7481944147
6447556546
7231973123
6985454759
9989099989
5603835668
8758338895
5011503516
9960999406
9626586295
3297932197
2867033196
9844288196
5986696596
6897732706
7400098115
0004535440
6561953961
6997967957
8866886865
0206550292
9623057947
9755730463
4384056490
2938680967
0314666940
2170210277
6720800662
8730973769
0862402026
5295777555
2730785648
6230239721
0790764466
5532421017
0290869129
6545454455
8413183488
6412020102
4854844184
9309393993
6313308861
6542390316
9429393362
9312147206
9345030941
5442952255
5502110905
2116060661
3722662262
6200996906
5502106087
2718013024
6402122999
2242949604
2412937062
6699494906
2555552277
6676461674
2522457422
6887773580
2030253526
7849273574
6534164974
0326650670
3415192906
3434144413
0115818030
7493874793
2646026204
4502155401
7616143872
2415169475
7406895110
2406194364
5413010204
3243081323
2644489463
0930749823
1067578653
1355479923
6687778664
1888448823
0322049203
9029989920
3181881353
8434323084
1707713770
9000090910
9399898439
3373332863
1918210733
3992423463
4827923480
7724793989
5314613580
6953260424
2561367561
1753277584
5775917864
2037050961
0922550824
9997517959
3322883524
1636163961
1111477491
5448166053
8539321644
9267221012
3483663833
4514611657
7181718147
5530561533
0500005080
2532223652
1216026014
1871131053
6270242399
1947127460
6957188676
6977145143
1210111112
6741817711
8971498749
4772542770
0857150505

The puzzle

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

0503945787
0833359451
5938699171
9953480971
5533303576
6573935337
5952655659
0883882308
0608600600
9530335903
9766176961
3319613963
4788577837
7292699292
2699797966
4686582799
2366939721
3799559933
9288642865
4718642656
7042787964
3462453784
9046183976
9241920358
9341186438
3332773333
9664444796
7049740470
8207110801
7461966174
6642288969
3442540012
9659240154
1656261233
3156787947
3672732372
1156515555
1626516662
6452244422
9042550010
5498353052
5123717468
8789134384
9127310777
4729766242
9787399778
4798197149
5126165111
4449749474
9193333189
0411522638
0491819396
8461884393
0471097878
1091547543
0095595000
8201021888
8015203112
4570005700
1474844444
8811818111
4553934499
1436111334
6018181601
3713373383
6836982693
3533167729
8718385106
8051306578
4012110751
0034103411
6711167611
3473843378
0829028108
3297979999
3819964868
3416169089
3037872814
3497104306
3729189588
8343999448
9166114616
9099309993
7611776717
5502552052
7066943363
9662743497
0166543599
7592953900
9043727775
7185666116
3712930797
4157474441
5752322725
7758575775
5155949455
7157576991
2782611777
5788638166
7718467663
5666565665
3857075734
9822222292
5222022025
0632732670
9626768745
0627068336
0832533575
3661075900
0222066646
9955055995
9566566655
7346930999
7123111113
4032993942
9353544653
9543011033
9333985312
7572088270
7356027807
4236779352
1621347470
5071390515
1371808263
4476308558
1026772667
7436333637
5520855850
4201301249
4371636113
4439945682
3331335287
7974543863
0579184599
1488013883
7747774707
2335345593
1336613669
6688886286
9330030893

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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