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:
2986826888
7091990097
8232422202
0895330899
0436368085
7802360736
8931315359
0296890240
9701872505
1259517598
4648837405
9690325408
5205635590
9793119397
0711837108
0074171480
2825025502
9951918995
9008656743
2446952892
0750552745
0811871803
5895752792
0777778707
6385836845
0555553503
1344161843
8531538652
3311331317
1458548581
5355553455
0480230351
6655734382
3703130385
7071881781
7705358481
0959509997
1913703991
1837012203
3525812902
2292999982
1112311253
4690090236
2040002407
2998383992
1379197119
2160661206
8159995118
9196518511
0199968273
1350393889
8129556417
2329524007
8159982519
5386250290
4331475370
8980281634
8180364985
3136553356
8541388834
5335434554
8986226289
4280882445
0888660388
7907959701
8111819881
3113339125
6983630781
0536749705
9009469107
6788139106
3284669126
5942111415
4011000010
2415111145
7474777746
5972725215
5965345140
2465670064
2463736463
7414055248
5685185818
0862444262
0350000050
0115331111
5165144300
1810867866
0815164919
0765485080
0867868612
5034204436
5426142111
2348114423
8068118808
5343120249
2428172090
9068170041
2038162923
4364196544
6901261096
3984634984
1923737232
9405359009
3903325940
1901373002
6982770887
2909604300
2924689424
6654363465
4470140614
6028760828
3932559323
3938362782
8411106312
8438395143
3912707685
6678141958
9610160585
9010118218
9852644798
6010508189
6610776106
9062300066
9058189991
9802589562
6112412221
The puzzle
Given the above hint, what famous landmark do the numbers below refer to?
7503473407
4466614064
5707730725
4434334482
5198430082
9130430007
9425564765
2526864727
9088904627
4411585417
8981169718
2002272800
8171338719
4339279417
9089439017
8226516410
6832515755
6849679701
2055521050
3833118013
7277575786
7866776784
4573476610
5872221783
3571316783
0434775054
8902473784
1716782287
4610427517
4287994975
6880944347
1882919197
6708777706
0600400000
4226446224
6516868656
4224728147
3344394373
5551819851
4997974937
4678899441
7970946977
6262794973
7880829201
2453714147
8507887035
2777575775
4487448070
8888119288
2115275275
5765972335
2228288780
4857618795
5737785070
9999595095
4544449543
1077708790
7676919647
1365018695
5394248585
5215400645
8678245395
7441910398
0105573457
5709633457
6619830451
4466270451
2818173281
4476443674
3787330757
7847488747
4444441470
0170007040
9454954999
4204007245
5845758475
4133458940
5171754475
6226704675
9352101271
6574257040
3532231523
7557474835
7726732672
0013314043
8251012523
5229032673
7366334542
3121684342
9960532543
8381288888
4629522242
5607440960
2369339692
5311540889
2608365667
6267372044
6318538268
4329559880
6693699966
2174372313
6332113331
8937117189
8992122445
6092323388
2642606931
2493638054
6693189157
7575771155
6763326073
1137273712
6426556472
8532651072
3438291475
3704526147
0425093712
7577456713
5777575741
4414114744
2277872827
1443338644
5280275844
1782913726
8559375844
0979773144
4761064741
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.
Comments
Big Ben
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.
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.
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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