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:

7875110034
1005782002
7771159412
6071203054
0890707226
7893113183
6701700161
0720002000
2075252282
7805107805
6247069879
4805937741
6742030823
4847096446
6662380535
1792919779
6867078876
4249040472
5698366555
3845999345
8008283021
1661151614
4848064840
9002952209
7871919317
5779259024
7646662311
6394359229
4808803019
8178459611
6467947476
1062720722
5614777177
6891564556
3871557311
6062727096
6674590547
1071747256
6457735765
5074542467
4067111711
8453252455
1368762736
2316821111
8233532882
8333588701
8310581020
8353512152
4413554537
1316835875
7420840777
9440550909
4989999990
6760966677
6599999966
6799560493
6940992183
9989187453
6540923999
9520524019
6185184427
4565115167
4154040362
6183187259
3495563249
0763179113
3983118939
6124021116
4595555555
2425924922
3648244343
2231722127
8106906001
1366066661
1097517996
3267787567
8206772760
3356919410
1367590716
2296062878
2032057346
3795386372
6417596356
7069826413
9956256312
3699996396
4152255042
1266226916
9363696353
2478288472
0656055609
4115312431
4774844786
2562922965
5747757644
3510212665
0130617405
0242012261
9922342686
6266154685
1110806111
5119665159
5244444542
0569305356
8558555885
0514324388
1514668644
8119606365
1554031953
0148535847
5696665666
6626464654
0470207044
5648006608
3393773333
0640767762
3628655963
6490415264
0626213094
9698705170
0858555160
5646600372
6848944605
7837928032
7139523005
3898599883
0059999009
7848474427
6138666388
5676965679
4442228222
1740700417
1736577353
3029499002
1113333111
1130504734
1110727953
1440243783
4546769518
4742757710

The puzzle

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

0798447909
6264666466
1522025655
9041814918
0976557909
9794547029
0998353028
9774626946
0748542448
1076625244
7661936794
0553880355
0409049601
9056905906
0000330003
4074630606
1833546605
9852037394
6591236901
9211800093
2006651827
6256278314
2053922835
7030293509
1855584344
2806556568
6893499834
1233666160
6750999760
2085220225
3576666543
5276729095
3562809601
2756184108
3576108006
2576157175
3562825666
2760707300
5757055057
9296162629
3044949081
3781381458
0048953198
7661900784
1045705869
8981798717
3745975732
0762227772
1049339490
7644044406
4119111491
1473555131
6600806666
3392442499
9820338942
3479563478
9492345901
9223814346
9109462888
9120417234
1017760354
1204849349
6225032378
7302750344
1111059568
3352538548
9449949294
4336462349
0565030650
5060250362
7183100667
7129050744
7305710500
8106347831
8106565604
7428171717
6313553116
8106212219
1185011005
6379373733
5093943735
6992030382
6973310939
5002044468
0084180296
5092950299
0090101991
6981081091
8904994959
5373653336
1111611118
6032656737
1722540417
6722449904
6725320283
6722557227
0318636083
1641313103
9035333330
1522451241
3172437814
9937391723
4747449447
2888888812
6856775586
6376238427
3969247824
2830871432
2998935884
0008935724
0874979998
9132888213
5746176375
9852325538
6670337666
9732965373
5840839932
0875915864
5674307815
0174398848
3708883873
1762311632
1876969169
0150999559
7212719277
0776965493
3812861018
1266965727
1776905578
1707330205
8429523184
9868096289
3352421230
0446178213
6540071233
8243771283
4344342234
2215123159
4844298824
6462426430

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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