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:

5453676534
4978848299
7007083790
5226528562
0989995890
5660098592
8264088560
5443278564
3101170890
1928588560
5588989959
8384464834
1515118425
0764246722
8383553484
7865814734
4107849426
0262663754
4176568925
6763158929
2890000202
6392556465
6514242445
1869861961
0570570075
6894541778
2579524953
1869820661
0570146826
2319596879
1938364954
3905893556
2702871220
4231866700
4208968175
2211311121
4212422141
3837878038
4902924992
1708888801
2353255232
0894995804
3659929533
0166101396
1581158162
6235691832
2289455834
5665295396
3617559536
6163925903
8998449280
9396161319
4220004257
1090000390
3838390383
1907491380
8755890297
0279464319
6128364380
3100094370
1810981119
8154755188
2142828286
1425851115
7227572227
7145981737
1121760570
1124500125
8455731908
8212950582
7347474737
3159359955
7961661777
5831686636
5576776377
7371324273
5846755031
5379356513
7832430009
5861659415
7701689938
6404375023
7264445027
3591304197
3491706208
9403334334
6701767407
7521355517
3565456565
4794666497
1529535143
1513594238
9035834268
0796994841
6395012238
8444994848
9911919169
3242532251
3309390233
5422224555
7714467147
1861118144
7337735727
3443714374
1175517651
8941615771
4615064176
6707114147
5952017344
6236637774
9517996952
5560336389
6485354352
5984750322
3743430382
3002330328
9993030892
8575857589
1338434172
9256526952
4009681663
9469531827
3780671869
3477310623
4191031827
5337376635
6788181763
9661371663
7277880727
9886832869
8021221305
5767783756
8498984889
1978182971
5671775186
9132871786
3816482801
4568621906
6370981776
9576385787

The puzzle

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

5939293935
7236776727
0031501330
3507277207
3671932367
5931544440
3031992509
5601287509
3439970348
3231257800
3849420570
6300208579
2212302171
2224890489
1221010549
7979717349
0719783179
0101000481
6050018560
2237222573
7649664579
3333038066
9967269279
9111232914
0838118640
6058434249
8691684576
5864734649
9414539566
7344119279
9656066076
0572022507
4848488484
8460566448
4350133340
9648148870
4440416222
4882562556
8350130341
8558071440
9512595912
4314133114
0346433443
7532442738
3657975777
4312983336
9537547785
7317165184
3312907176
6612901098
3320263272
8144231302
8822603907
0516963106
6530051936
3743354377
0637263902
6636661236
5855851807
6511006105
0280508507
6663533333
0809690698
9616416191
2340550543
0310566869
9113420065
2363579292
6800557555
2886543581
9074623154
9934740934
2057710356
8074343912
7434160469
4257754274
8039790377
7474674747
9951335531
0454147455
9206385150
7465682350
3195405888
9319116314
5833216387
8833376380
7532515327
0988589158
2412282214
3908308390
1996099909
4027828408
3561457166
1153611111
2445555554
1955583277
3541853094
1443090241
2523632798
1553121657
6161001001
6409490840
4300700040
5252752757
6657151665
6309782576
6600072191
4907488019
6152173505
6301109070
7254058216
6259323822
1347319891
2219559842
1217320714
7259797775
1344614643
9214091419
2557875755
6276323973
5206764635
6991001381
9244563509
0145653505
1280653539
9616551689
3151105531
5609946985
9966963979
8886868308
4439399443
5422335222
9977557916
5011551270
5756557456
0112251970
3742357426
0104991456
3461593413
2737739226

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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