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:
1247441772
5620100515
9030809703
9612333231
9420384758
4010896090
1037923336
9642465887
5217461880
0949832684
4979817042
8049702063
2178764061
5019799075
2147624434
7928828772
0769266096
8971217121
6285765288
1759556080
6554686864
0934765711
6236532625
0559755597
6746267674
0994690486
8785058878
5245242250
5975779750
1676616776
6539559703
0755216503
9602059200
0673542756
5770853200
9199449257
9955696956
0020207202
6636623683
7180178187
6212057207
0488798106
4698356183
1384876256
2471677807
0608040606
4616005910
4638924302
9478300111
0378938708
0306006306
9618969991
3479000409
4768344274
3329433333
4858187555
2296162262
6784578648
3828524659
6284580772
2786300984
6889117963
2388191361
1488424529
5324223321
7730831520
7780833596
3823333821
5666558596
2243924329
1113631611
6962666990
1597534767
9596885406
9513184745
7713528356
7517311331
2043104142
1796776177
2991899178
9583555555
1575577550
6267786729
5725020751
1121111272
4361010520
6146577772
5485626758
4602086722
2922316799
7156061031
3769707141
7070845987
3074765004
3476773644
3789093578
8654994959
7136838176
1040204021
7100837213
2963161583
6194766587
6571434589
9443934983
5116166119
3338378833
6165131564
3223827387
3186226626
7283037008
7978677868
2433993321
2987983576
7163224862
7173939838
7883093973
7967281054
8562555282
8469161944
8717187311
3233132331
9462146616
3769192721
9069179978
9562103583
8262185392
The puzzle
Given the above hint, what famous landmark do the numbers below refer to?
1106809906
7833804158
8800414206
2478010356
7989992178
6370867308
0017100716
6576404656
0910019950
6105184978
6421846392
6922809223
1161986071
3062116023
5155255552
2233443243
6923866986
1401990016
1557625641
1121565037
7930851639
1526435687
6116153611
5666667645
2892020539
5527765237
7378535087
5733720653
5703593061
4404712328
8623561178
5613755551
5763226733
4074070404
8325555232
8407474750
3003130333
4014301331
4277049774
6725757677
4285127225
5024348264
3034358630
6015144270
3004138392
3729723729
5168815618
9860969038
0687718670
9594016099
5434569668
6726919626
3740215620
3732269720
0252333535
1277121112
3355252593
5409770904
5274942563
5475234718
3254191783
0377972613
9274187055
8997618790
0897889744
8837231146
0904581777
5997599595
8887888887
8005900000
0804200023
7835993853
2224173173
5876452674
5982672193
1418073574
4555556554
7637353673
3333332394
8770777072
3173773113
8588885868
7499224439
4332101342
9939599359
1349098162
1786125559
5624834429
4494699342
3213899459
3574714060
6690801001
3648176057
6870304560
4543111434
6870887677
3024141404
7698769779
2646341662
9433321339
8585417716
0183022614
9797431324
1626331626
1164643617
2399821839
3023040314
6717617767
9905757590
8899891858
0030300034
9258158419
9092858950
1834300439
7596150454
6906507424
9014559894
3200240184
3137680746
6934284117
3802160039
6837118133
6951252215
3262623627
0548354880
4104041444
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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