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:

4143030142
0067664709
1707710117
3293303213
6777576125
0132470113
9131930112
3408636172
3504470117
2170214142
5559165483
4048551908
5515075415
2437865103
5425057103
5944959458
2115052013
6319763197
4889875983
7655017605
5923629655
8073377878
7546454466
3420323432
8222999022
7923302584
8040416804
7220362139
4243372812
5022340762
6365336543
4461616644
2666121669
7535585275
5336351636
2499051546
3456511365
8017681646
7505286243
9632556643
5098280385
4152238186
8208670800
8242183303
5157125440
9847778898
8107272022
5558658558
3092103713
6246868282
2408492507
7438678523
7008428034
2478161253
7278160968
4478117467
2908409029
7837477773
7178661177
2258185125
5961760951
2641711659
6021740355
2042733502
5961726025
2971777179
6068766660
8641441181
5242943422
2163939666
2231058779
7436853278
7038544086
1431069435
8236506410
8226558256
7669977269
6838068368
1281612181
2436832848
4544353049
7606676662
3372373352
1842812438
0228372380
9671853480
5614673388
5428476659
6003372481
9489876042
0319117930
0035555300
3171337198
0340080441
9933536539
7012836399
3221337390
7265435521
4444530341
3410830500
3373227331
3180661080
3414341393
6959693596
7557575455
0446471035
3191373383
1620341781
4748195050
5265121353
1153711337
9030330033
7494191477
0355335735
5937179571
1934348077
7030140329
1033109472
0554399740
7433119262
4460692613
5070852943
6685552712
1935897715
7268456072
7775556742
9070092076
0773106713
1603063910
4404447683
2285766721
5521742302
9221559601
2123730215
5547786901
5175777775
5581588188
7527559527
0145740014
2253725523

The puzzle

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

3589555985
3095885585
6868186866
3944244239
3877538567
3899507817
3095589263
3075279135
3987147041
7984245506
0870870700
9903799099
3836763338
0073330633
7060370360
3833761676
0020349215
0070389539
0030712070
7873829352
5569096953
5128222828
2631441121
3632336323
5851355355
2851306229
9638320699
2561486590
2631304537
5122017325
7612070068
3240134300
0963161963
6518717878
9591199599
6640143508
3613152569
3280158935
3911190404
9993090672
4593576979
3378450909
0228256929
4157053949
8588677508
8813958921
9777777978
8646456448
7696776509
3323123914
9848136180
4482518542
4537318940
2355886943
2758830213
8591316583
0808488450
9091110910
2338338232
8864686641
2510665651
3236030006
5227622727
1382113312
8956359852
2916146192
5986699784
5206610875
3237332295
8356676253
1545870008
4452183305
0587693318
1005910595
6095673543
9597373593
6674487646
1590390315
8548860598
0939093005
4660981122
0310182374
4230435307
1912403739
9930123667
0233990203
1710101007
4030643600
4660440446
9932432092
5454020493
2906315343
7018114432
2184015291
9932870991
4944914494
1644070441
1838315883
3373323337
4999434992
7378077137
1127221711
6017330730
6177766766
2470177011
7177702538
7077777628
0177750050
6370377023
6378780973
1525396228
7055281202
1218275404
3782795994
4156679248
8888195108
1432151244
2128481422
4999599254
7496976497
9698889686
9941211992
1028725778
8241331222
6235735227
9245763944
6928748607
8931211615
1031239419
1699860242
9172391762
3010500005
7169337776
8937117193
8388138388
3979343785
8111346640
7367311770
9112332047
8110375476

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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