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:

7896998642
6411773416
2772969712
8163360318
1111111111
3769418648
1661619412
7485818312
0501361492
1675493412
3816031618
1019891980
3725752737
2779926999
9108398983
1709961995
2716743359
9729973187
3816781582
1728484388
7599781725
1569973155
1511438889
0192793273
2599148143
7531555175
2499194749
7099997999
1112911111
0562705775
9369355255
3367162668
3067325716
9362041585
3569309267
0969116199
3562336532
2333663636
3052622256
9187879783
7667667667
7332022303
6379113737
5306236603
6117116147
5337187751
6336102961
6367280136
5616776812
6666164860
7642224411
0644974573
9050771033
6644706355
7056325892
7645335545
7810788870
9996799766
0004200004
9252922092
4431440931
3927737932
0251919025
8885195581
5553555248
2831495532
8929195945
7383817981
4590535988
5650839986
8932690282
0834076615
8724096617
0130278268
7212678987
9009770097
8665516655
8969292638
8892178219
5959895982
3746808624
3456801811
3356394063
9296237199
9781345551
9996999669
3296882893
8786888578
3441313334
3158288582
7877227877
6116661796
9994323429
1400991500
7171751715
9902891776
4235321569
2536651575
8348397419
4722061825
9494915499
0679706790
9814483994
5515191756
7712171726
6403496499
7109991799
7524405796
6712401752
5267503994
5321531254
3339332953
3915195130
9922992161
0929779560
3661639253
2631431131
2746275553
8284132250
0876235350
2712538698
1729831292
3738656045
4054738283
6045431398
5998959899
5858238253
6102671692
5545555845
6366866388
6050104111
1941292142
0676167660
5438048535
6354556533
1058144022
0951008355
1944230836
0338003064
1044839781

The puzzle

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

7274425841
5900655844
9015961899
1085622040
1871832060
0686131069
0030112300
9656560590
8482222841
4508485044
0951909261
5982924282
0952292696
2385322308
5958385408
5338959588
5955255225
0951227102
0382909389
6981319868
1397295384
9497794987
8875070834
2489679862
7099295784
7347373784
6969995964
3242342372
0764870884
7900909837
7265733140
7549508289
2935131241
4935817853
7938128747
7948374774
0535151531
9564555485
2236772233
4959194149
8393888939
8588985858
8963433998
6322112212
8189311599
8168985903
8563350653
8399985677
8508314858
8582302823
0876897610
6156596619
5959466365
2134220360
1732454318
5667756572
0821602680
4499294269
3113167315
0131510358
6166969669
5470150001
6205777107
6357167536
6460996966
6200900997
6256154643
6277973541
6475065574
5465128022
6249002924
6233033243
9316898186
5716366577
0911790111
5236347875
6919030743
6211875243
9216821479
0348047701
6693430087
8129648533
1478969181
6232599187
2050690531
3381138187
6810666581
3358399583
1714740137
1331133416
8818305527
8192039221
8192388894
8821415228
4818361601
3898333333
7529449795
4061501649
7415314455
8182182818
7428758065
6781221748
8037790506
7084737860
3758123771
6083774087
7938223782
8751118158
9421424144
3734773777
2414974499
0951139649
2053413168
1418272494
0271219168
9394313199
7055475409
2333332373
4630434460
8668609648
5454552644
0066606489
2429961924
1113113693
2732179821
5234012924
5552472624
4009764624
4032216623
1948669644
7282272822
5500550701
7833772936
4744546357
7233339273
6957072873
4528442203
5066339951
0418377953
4534772272

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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