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:
3304422403
9897879782
6696976696
9890910598
8709476782
8370976688
4043410998
8733072288
0337576406
0008889086
2070007227
2112110122
6311113811
2373450822
9106519181
8964900832
4946317815
0282803211
1146756380
5726757928
1796183028
8966722963
1545154155
7166766761
0712021700
5964767979
8827727885
0221112061
7104510471
1665661666
9794799994
9164784624
7605750529
1294715558
7681522557
7621733095
5101800816
0001449081
3878313878
3993392633
8172659678
1893080881
9429853611
1827749801
9966809606
5073350570
7950709577
7361767137
1513959319
7663964404
4653982073
1673734618
1010970834
1523964593
2232354150
5430053100
0436059855
8628819140
5655754576
0577552750
1414512445
5550773105
6292929189
2987368990
8998547578
2781612071
8205522691
8881918818
2695525259
2929669622
2207880270
8088388588
7729292762
9009980930
6139996133
5979998879
0500638723
3138588932
0048889133
0153690839
4001532772
9799744279
2884272478
7600081207
4655556544
9227450527
3276731247
6158956228
8723741977
0383371273
3540431405
1611414186
9009090044
3609396365
4596036485
1027091385
1390316446
5549931106
8617682486
5018880645
2973755202
4978403672
9619989940
9078778727
2969896289
2613036160
4078178148
5877955858
6233266302
3333443834
7712171811
7722712377
5697472337
7384712802
9113742717
1507342337
9143713817
9673146616
9429071738
1575525712
2004873097
7775373797
8299228098
6411441136
7961186791
1561995612
The puzzle
Given the above hint, what famous landmark do the numbers below refer to?
9088250427
3942788302
6545722162
5998340251
9085116855
3242772774
5918518559
3597633379
6878386786
9413446424
1505942725
1774432508
9760032785
5233533525
7277406724
3113531125
6642642286
4969894408
0616860638
9483783443
8531638855
9468194418
0685787521
9463865659
9616786376
8611644689
9418583695
3559357539
8885555858
1110081401
9972792799
3526896858
0585755509
8389495599
6678356478
4225837889
3958625598
5498745574
5461183587
5268922070
5891151118
3468943494
5460666556
0121721129
5258444525
9902160504
3705754740
3442764672
3442749240
9445795975
3842783834
8407220818
3948131444
7604666647
8383581036
8638157511
8433784325
4632587051
4608110656
3333133133
8987597899
8689788878
1442552444
6343163464
6153131591
5603553553
7155155755
6153107019
6343716731
6103188275
7132733801
6155771080
6140127359
4189506385
8447724400
4149145906
4889554948
6917667766
6149746176
9448544644
8047110741
8180901910
7045840770
8190888509
3040330300
3180948604
8080408582
8190436181
7789474171
8080939942
4498889441
7478575784
9994004979
9111717914
2757279491
9116307449
8954719784
4082177944
7085807571
3810107852
4078814867
2198745764
0834415062
9979797927
4570005764
4444044072
6667007862
8513819832
1710661917
9819911918
6957767957
3590755735
3510708800
9590913156
9197702592
9819656988
5819483030
5094156354
9856751499
6809131911
9884544171
9254393153
6098589886
6807118108
4896994644
5989118859
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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