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:

1383993518
2122214229
0888768705
3666669675
7657552467
4724698768
7748668768
7351013427
2558668417
0057455415
2060900962
4686244864
3793837780
0969706909
9288799989
2068746925
9099969153
4756258034
4968776591
2698799978
0060550607
9222295062
2774291427
7000000431
3966939969
4490630427
0464650439
4929895439
8431731924
0724009962
5526634296
8021204255
3533714959
9424914509
4050854590
5797939507
3900908999
0488114850
5455554557
4552554255
7387611614
1569884295
2186608984
2176157684
5520077855
8758558695
1111717918
5331571355
2412154215
4488181884
0224005207
5646464425
1155815890
2133376312
5838332851
7742635201
3623601802
7793616822
2615362807
1004415221
5911789036
1346613761
1316739876
8048812410
9041940392
3348777483
9073993997
1011811111
6741777446
8966669769
9915138990
1249257840
5564737870
2005427835
8344637834
3339333937
7879858792
0267727870
1327131271
7477847844
0228120265
9227370414
9724937648
8847991054
2294942020
0724117301
0801911808
9298393233
4244244444
2827488472
4511589270
2444519986
3576718606
4541020851
2584703250
9544599845
4544654445
3456756775
3586033380
2471777272
3518738151
1428462193
3213386199
3232430903
3612343158
1982312283
9213323113
3622922239
4513757654
3138444333
2788674310
7558673926
5853374304
2873374610
3659474950
7979970957
1391493314
4847474984
4676474606
6121221100
6742126167
4292942942
3719273393
5246122361
9916777917
5742146147
5218247319
3299167820
6242971853
6216149407
5915858953
2391349321
1521454211
7777727452
7377378763
2934257721
2492918462
6676054751
8435659262
9409649253

The puzzle

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

8213616337
1052905394
5395436977
7260735924
9421039434
9196116990
7939999937
5084445487
3222336322
1411481174
6666836483
2285586852
3439394932
8181888181
5324354384
6743056331
6080234352
7043984434
9504656483
2628998234
9353535935
9030743970
5210720715
4555005527
7727757027
0414630935
9854163970
2428737927
5002237517
9591105775
5555558759
3363117346
8272268220
6776323726
7339930697
2234037256
1827763626
4073710697
4250132749
4077318690
7528978857
6541354413
6104864444
7160119111
7230939220
7561306994
6144880759
7160883535
6540548071
6230353113
1812305837
7652086799
7825355816
0292773014
1222381175
8812311888
6631511636
0452757470
1823022207
7225353723
7228878932
9999999539
1511187181
8248542852
9708779808
6037897551
0214849851
5243678902
0591946802
3910197852
5505557505
0666671664
2050025002
7117114710
4474177421
0585675762
4095651001
0183127405
7350875004
0114951429
6725666665
7617666617
8224329483
4964224464
7872777278
7672302540
1974283221
7722221014
6925653603
4714624952
8388748848
5178459791
3686341505
7040531867
9941051547
0039930907
1617158761
2215151295
4990040849
5251831558
7746547676
0728882200
7644677066
6459959995
6539936953
7738567109
7648508110
7626817394
7734699066
7549371030
9593195151
9841339413
1641313312
8790677998
2084114400
2540121337
9393132898
1091107129
8681344387
1684120655
7516272906
7709731676
1416200072
0487757969
4417344791
7487777478
4113213111
1719313969
0024707700
1306863300
9120758755
5340058459
0836250719
7658550719
7506670745
7055570145
1171118711
5550658650
2777778742
9979900919

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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