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:

3233532335
4612941151
7826562888
1372727777
4170971091
1833584678
3272955089
1410957501
3813941857
4120914918
0026588502
2313392138
3533853358
2555745702
9868118694
0645415732
3267395638
7664388682
3588798332
6199688194
3384443434
5521313355
1213423243
2110511014
4980334433
1110383689
3180325302
2115521038
5513482440
1181373504
2865707573
2123303553
8298912172
5356172170
9013839593
3110113030
9499909594
7110708171
2200012053
5795137152
0448940498
2222212225
3383833888
6639010376
4139391344
7902811245
7011017385
1288111278
4644730426
0888930276
8024241440
6983969998
7496449494
7196337319
9764999944
8196927709
7994437562
6726217429
2483943907
9784906201
4828431494
3602678274
9427976794
0102768864
6066671690
8616171698
8322338293
5888080850
5874688764
8848886478
5719513807
9081913086
1556561800
5176713078
8451213201
0381115008
3111813811
6637363276
5551513550
7717071007
5446587545
8818876560
4602281953
3670777643
7782874943
9927177941
9212121095
8223881237
4644674623
6650686560
8082828840
0581288088
7682188277
7503805557
5647956596
5647141666
8002821450
3542873127
5082212743
5503241100
8609168969
6211911116
6434666664
7637175733
3882332238
6289165702
3619905666
6234741811
6437315533
3212102806
5695979153
4095069710
6671216167
1736314975
0184255255
9944754970
7703113217
7537309753
5500065055
9797179166
4187000708
7276666772
7294079627
2479007247
7760117771
7770104845
7169046855
2266103971
9767041308
7264128299
2074847222
3161111143
7853888755
0753606065
3203133203
0853181418
0853128950
2853808688
8253852297
7773878875

The puzzle

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

8552655532
8157660638
8475756660
6602968978
7299650530
3383118370
6020060032
9392291238
6665226569
8818555658
3700896135
2262940449
8577775185
8115775137
5659031787
7407570445
9889898187
0714441734
9999495194
8111536185
0058507654
5052584775
8495794769
0545748911
0594565094
8494598449
0062266666
5568956556
1155455551
0828782908
0671107871
8129441484
9746147476
9372499722
4658555655
9176144389
9329169748
8772428211
9649538133
7172170535
3842181132
4570440747
0628006062
3283772831
8854358538
3254722848
4252077034
3874724213
3552384251
0589044058
6533889085
3165846187
6185174944
0165276801
0183364677
3483333833
6663233362
0125202115
8130010123
4561841844
2237427922
4723347334
3384004438
0085908855
8638538588
8087348042
2033999895
4286572576
4683552114
8333574845
9156478387
1418578317
7081648214
0243311217
2180278437
4666316437
8887278842
4842449284
6115518517
1771779317
5766170382
5377459923
1840105789
0610700722
4953457388
0000770708
0292709227
5339445309
4966884762
7885957988
3956904044
8337395300
9181933852
6557962231
8153324044
3982993893
5141911151
9397997979
8133233286
6656366566
9792760804
9742551285
3746730219
6736100187
3841760331
9887578559
0762270702
3756173157
3691774619
6743774444
1131111311
4966689649
6747626475
4115375143
8977117967
1832679179
9663411365
2135989149
6688321147
8822819215
7773543016
8295989059
7353514702
1999576099
8798904965
4639994909
1924922492
8393588555
7778677887
6235555655
1822012054
8480348040
8720384079
8206614048
6720525982
1269518666
5492656565
8880388338
6528336365
7708000778

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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