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:

9101103458
0459118888
9000470404
6280993666
2761892656
3349393804
5676670676
5411814458
6666606666
2722272687
1534883114
5202450055
3716611116
0038403473
3998338983
0912386958
1094415221
3531629845
5738641686
1002440461
3609818605
7377113999
0607154558
3379068523
0979761511
3607937376
9377777779
4679099766
7312137131
0948206994
4869000065
4786918767
8187566365
4286050402
1786545259
8606999866
6779597756
4282684222
1168416819
7886007776
8545885556
1515531581
1190111809
7870448707
9999599145
5755211507
3465281549
7600848505
2984111189
3211495259
6053458443
0265806865
2626462466
6907197999
7936939666
6925967700
6946473182
2063166507
6067482275
6923494466
8264282364
2728183127
5213173210
3392343922
3310130031
5680232262
4942080917
8835382234
0107572294
1658643114
9955515466
5557450118
5882907502
5883071538
8803982247
5587572585
9935053900
0853555885
8509980988
1482644164
0826372734
0006064028
7040321042
0746893883
0242302505
0226332722
0845664650
5740804775
5242332453
7019091997
1216547354
8734735302
9238546401
9526418402
8572143223
8204338803
9548754744
8512425180
1736535771
3274133471
9799591976
9879949721
5771995232
9443158421
5545124120
5445954594
9721999199
9576195573
7796009677
9819591918
9969192216
7252241972
9556996511
6868068302
1173737114
8514092172
3665238212
5132292911
3709697272
5075041132
2807694327
3280140917
5290121825
3277175453
3808169930
3807130108
1878818788
3980668899
5596566555
1250616861
1155919551
7774848378
6666666329
8816665810
7097776279
3790019370
2929246251
1797976358
8991968289
6268768359

The puzzle

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

2400145664
0487872975
2170821783
3156975764
3511856168
7332372364
7876131678
2927929763
8509595985
5667656179
4000000000
3888433884
8495249281
4680568404
5441335455
4605505528
4800526158
8891442030
7685084112
4480467049
4064973983
5037264488
8798336716
4767737571
8185303520
0162717401
0797979007
5188318185
4207909074
8035203002
7339972911
0547273413
9692278511
2680052228
7765653918
7626576528
8919898911
0500150811
3482883283
1121272211
8041195138
3181092631
6501401499
0485901194
2917452651
1111132151
0000101019
8688989698
7705555179
1121492431
2240231179
4414845296
4989171111
0310141196
0930455190
3123131231
5915655196
0667667160
7111141171
3799778599
3374973397
7379077963
1034600331
2330929023
3419771333
2370741397
3414617148
3414613605
2334978365
3329905551
2936063366
1238035320
7713413117
9008200920
4923773242
9728727856
1728725464
7208233725
7033330006
4013707229
3638228633
4276796762
9129241923
9368688693
2232532529
4576638523
3540040623
8992886929
7770691533
0050026723
0887640168
0900000990
1555365513
9649693964
1122110125
9023413964
4606700998
0593015965
4591849163
3895113964
0656707884
0586740169
0466702974
2666766598
5786308496
2482777847
0666404066
0701334001
5466765646
0454909440
4494904649
3822886823
0699303369
6296659616
0343370340
9342656820
3802701669
0852283619
5324273816
5967700849
4242326436
4227732407
1990023690
4963496348
7701110776
8737816347
0166329446
3772896348
2513526496
0812836676
7658887567
9382783777
4596445596
7357972333
4043333334
7343946514
7357624823
4093755694
7358709106
7086779907

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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