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:
8000284022
1095090150
4464467044
1141175141
7111890121
3903795022
7227480149
4646005151
0025985053
7590032067
1956924463
0091280032
2479870403
0039379093
2920399203
4773724037
2744282472
3337330463
8734711013
8388778450
2789391643
5787385812
5939793595
8694228949
8284389388
8897879888
2788007782
6073663076
4106319433
1465111515
0914194941
1013329404
1301615062
1015683702
3434200484
4565682498
1566552516
0243236025
2505254200
4457757364
0585832345
6018150944
6185394214
0388656204
3569557265
9037920557
8648940427
7226866730
8066949828
2047974202
9268969229
8422006224
7536003060
8647887884
6205333053
4116446666
5402000300
3669333339
4617363649
5099317048
4102466412
6512085942
5107381591
5470294341
6520777902
0530352047
0470308327
5520333250
6830330333
5779275749
0513665551
2488994898
3011001279
1401212704
1581810085
4451515145
0386611984
4718800205
0260615178
0290500079
0197911741
1359232252
8217018870
6357156536
7641373664
7417362810
7341365262
1671372444
1299344292
8457387387
3755637766
9279552729
9086086100
1918711791
9956781621
9915798879
1856684701
9578018163
9258617936
1810111711
3385558833
1865955199
0194991900
3364183747
1815516859
3394562363
1894937601
1065145776
1082902398
4444444243
4870434870
9230339290
2789232297
4272609240
3910624240
1224802393
4073934790
8147477715
9515111515
0445141110
1365996163
9367122184
1418209676
1058200286
9058248866
8945149799
The puzzle
Given the above hint, what famous landmark do the numbers below refer to?
4039134095
0949496007
8218019318
8947766726
0249792497
1459741674
9097990779
4917090447
8038180888
0131522781
1307972775
2046872771
2006279445
7272772770
8588889885
5682825381
6667775786
4433232444
7076701784
9099531784
0216141645
9849031764
3444131744
8338103168
4881836684
0440440684
6477464785
6608628660
9196719079
8889556598
7687978936
4037658990
8095499926
2901456096
2175429098
6591718699
8786535019
0205016789
5330017080
5428215947
1828111280
4202942977
4543335044
1997117719
9309096039
9242324922
8825111525
9334229449
5777357377
0342164349
9345240359
0244121895
5285225734
4225304419
7828186888
8456068446
4045885480
8905798755
8848100876
8418286168
8606841359
2918155544
8026043863
6636666366
7001007291
7647476845
5895757798
7132017371
3958676775
9781013346
2412507876
2108986365
2351126854
3179815834
1159716113
1558215834
1313114133
5888855848
7427427714
1611116691
6558565654
0452149768
4050945929
3052388013
4922984823
1592919595
4902209420
0052885570
4430111414
2624323234
0741303402
1604770046
2689626666
1066116116
0706102147
5609163300
2744658342
1069450801
4869677416
5209550555
3699663606
4392044200
5742754755
5291584420
6792661187
5291576025
5379512548
4742531085
0079909123
4373538456
0080871809
7879580738
7072772702
4372674782
9813088389
0980989000
0059599050
3742838461
8816830172
6374810876
1702218871
3784737854
7721212772
1000140111
3066639566
7478748471
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.
Comments
Big Ben
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.
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.
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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