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:

5022761632
8009789091
5326660581
5372920303
5277343488
1302711020
1279677711
5026305636
5737456374
8332882388
5787734856
1911735498
4209314865
5989975858
0020875466
7667774866
9788778798
5488438455
5966595896
7655635665
8821488693
4823006131
5561608611
5821419101
1228183736
8821718221
5262002222
8503108130
1868183611
4021440420
9765612923
6573926849
8276753798
0419450799
5360030789
7251750728
8282823885
5222232553
0065556099
1442110442
8473648874
8688188881
9309590390
6069596000
7448178412
8069587590
8389154368
9388708221
6449655571
7688169580
1449280915
9364200283
9387102283
4783995313
2381210584
9898998893
9611590515
8855885384
5122810285
0050905907
8288525895
1778611767
2868686424
2728588752
7749979934
5826671822
6243488437
2991011932
9521085494
2860179942
3447042901
3432126294
7857142791
7857706759
3657149053
6657151756
3442727333
3841313303
0257572205
7737878873
3600915040
0920254921
9944681142
9599580180
5741491982
4401194140
9928289923
4119441192
1180090881
0507215022
4648813745
9491415795
2716519773
7725660900
5106013793
6660710766
3133113303
3334003745
9353915973
2639769792
5847524959
5222141230
4807871332
1230367959
1930328780
8942595554
2837322383
4102842018
1230433230
5322359255
3380588503
0109195107
8939837988
3777344937
8905953899
5769298139
4815444909
1773743439
2609694908
6334193908
5371140301
0118403381
3835503489
0636540731
8503493707
9714990147
9400343709
8899990388
1146008641
1081206421
7047022067
2292262029
7499984947
9996996920
1336131368
6824836927
3662322927
3426034968
1810982340
4993932942

The puzzle

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

1600717531
3146715841
4254316835
5200716888
5535855531
9661916395
3375555438
5412421584
1833111831
8448262846
3706405025
3353174983
6303982725
2081425642
2464345727
3704333743
2453444332
0553111505
6351413162
3066990666
2433734273
6555457450
5665660757
4927194172
5966952569
9400894473
8298864757
9933654158
5501854773
9908690767
7850613886
7516480825
8983932993
5998414393
4575412086
4823338324
3313112383
7271014076
9099333990
8880980889
3248694052
4199289453
2070355685
3065093430
4387091943
9949999645
7483371483
5555455455
3033883033
1195414990
6777766977
3335435499
2723219323
5555225275
0320110323
7592235427
4444419313
2871929929
7281210277
9208469293
3083333186
5075510145
1781457720
2258817726
3809810186
6411117146
5857753786
2313031610
6616410046
4845584529
2691331379
2841611379
8069811058
8256838060
3129898043
8111118840
3959191356
5733959083
3799931979
8119318369
2537939953
1787667776
4302500430
0277979727
6274992284
1277545963
0207610771
3784665036
0777667419
0377974906
7137074360
7708112136
0179064219
6878159659
7337328690
7852151582
9775277927
6307636006
0238000030
7101371121
8561345020
4267144045
8446184155
8261763680
3548181676
4541114551
8798388898
1066996610
8468784768
3291434733
0704044074
4046676434
6515136158
0299990892
7077773074
8654094892
0458840154
6344590094
0850374174
6828139834
9531340362
1323789226
1411005004
2324768033
1434383509
9524779145
1301011013
7323177322
2460704677
6437363737
3062549238
6367510230
5336104325
2396590614
2397723571
8757578757
2332525532
5542720755
3092323229
6366366333

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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