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:

5210551287
3899556140
7550624937
3856222708
2200568665
5816518852
7100607610
3550000503
8603283880
2239333992
2677979269
5980118080
6274828878
9776497697
3796179303
5276168050
3797895044
3776400248
6976399540
2680410846
6376267337
9981599159
5673885168
5704870087
7189999991
5774582083
5984970889
6664531804
9374595483
7681233869
1127999568
8354571759
8464364064
7160942147
8279459754
7722592750
6896558568
1144444154
9999991039
6874469847
0781907178
0755227505
5154249545
7625055777
1719111171
7751109549
2181121643
0729099371
5715008335
0154283310
3648884838
6684864846
4060260492
2940202422
9401391119
2040327274
2964223181
2144848939
6681212904
9041239247
0406990669
4220444242
7137937977
9589299255
1412771911
4402761813
1127979229
9289427247
9582699068
0180707322
2162016497
8240696489
6431016190
1420616170
4512876480
6766796867
0770016570
0679176130
0040800480
9747947190
0915776809
3935599288
7133938510
3425522476
0432149845
3933553353
4129324243
0405111454
7432922443
1713277387
0148647971
5704426633
5838792929
5105753488
0748341637
7077337777
1948688811
7108412411
0694549644
5735775373
2723376213
1388338189
9994048490
2494242274
3335959301
1022072213
2364272281
4812398204
4550672271
5060279281
5976401299
5556491582
3551717843
3556125782
5676300677
3571775531
3936366363
5568468768
7678487887
3056253205
6986866686
5079661706
7724372443
4537833388
5865335585
4526388966
7727620437
5739661595
6006623881
5529355006
8351355838
0861996605
1908111108
5626775256
9379553597
8971784186
0751726049
8659729923
9308597116
5371736435

The puzzle

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

9280273565
3965905267
6029674415
6810603616
1759673957
1117174211
2355773525
0353003556
6914775961
6764366437
0707519291
0781149210
0707642368
8787341247
4500340617
0940599005
8787387733
4483113334
3547675574
0707570655
6438066386
2052356300
5569059995
5006150056
1328535128
5028183662
5058597106
1099559167
6006543721
5009066718
1913431494
9874045884
8785008087
9646766646
4129111114
1919143459
9193415583
9773481941
1144126306
9816063234
5815555158
4571111734
4426724067
4140419904
1773177731
5609654907
2841853034
0743219104
7293377701
4856017907
5788827488
0410815408
5730514970
5710991761
5202560382
9708171807
2480000080
5440554504
3412914099
5238885588
7702913122
7801918012
3971282353
3781612915
6702961087
3971333989
6492762747
7800687870
6781080676
7704990744
0504975908
7056658404
3401056961
7544874521
5827450564
6446555446
2568868528
4039974901
4403440364
7755773567
7958797597
6662254263
5008680965
4424642467
7217110027
5576410597
8500592297
0016492067
9952684967
4973947491
2590956092
6764997446
3248522852
2821000180
4625959555
2560988518
4594917516
2160051172
3641978694
3528923104
0826180082
6645349463
7781551858
9817010887
5416334516
7815188719
7417114793
7786066351
7429510081
0815398187
6485759651
3449616587
5418688577
4614815419
3440100316
4475754745
5444644455
3195191311
6688866896
0410881808
3204043220
3331355213
0038020108
4191999314
4463113463
6815893328
1100118324
5372020360
8761713468
5183813324
1982991802
9648242679
0533008035
6819868419
7705577450
2577092070
0094302115
6837198879
1390148455
6517241859

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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