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:

7373373733
5649007545
6365966663
5226555652
5336753676
6246906966
7336063679
7366912648
7166070137
6275785314
7156226175
9977199161
5487055580
5490779495
2169512999
7450722823
2477750841
7956242718
6487026146
2467234457
3423036673
3994158075
8361016715
7924988702
8629580199
3423137334
2991595115
9423933439
8334003434
5669865665
6243007077
3595446945
3548406247
2297815497
9604617847
9259915297
7341474037
2522426945
2020005892
7774737477
3321171737
8310911832
8628681982
2538877751
2448295883
7985379983
1597997851
2775715732
2233381332
3133331033
6444605845
9442347147
9749155183
6746601644
9714102859
9446194411
5817338157
9756667675
3664633664
6302939291
2627151652
3321334123
5114514451
6611601763
0307770530
3641674451
9117551763
3940814173
6398771633
0110911763
7777727777
1511685861
8666030896
7082098007
0020595620
0976837621
4690495616
5961695867
1323735607
0220838606
7899160175
0426945138
0045500128
5035140872
8196270378
1801170138
7680446078
0022107122
6662669325
5207115970
1749353603
8266863901
9440855936
6552373686
5979675630
1555554651
5440555403
5994453944
6609969630
9992373906
3868086680
9324243229
8886778888
3161436148
5850333508
9180345369
8384208034
8884490702
8084020171
8866020236
7616880164
4000414041
1514154151
3010353031
7800778905
5395450041
4658274101
9747053055
7261284153
3967058031
3166367643
8444080544
6655565640
8326323168
9666993506
0206295603
0189760148
8237465566
5389167610
5414463504
2735369278
1491399986
7333860423
3491760171
3495765911
3135313353
1393713337
2463843263
7895389859
7621678216

The puzzle

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

3384511102
3544300726
3284725133
5524982028
8182368454
3542332523
3184030328
5350735055
8326982696
5204353524
2272871882
0749970934
1118113721
4570540570
7777777847
0790271587
0400970837
6886873924
6047213971
8792177528
4977779947
2496862129
3951495195
2004101141
4580550548
3004101847
2404158153
4996029932
2990449244
4004412740
1829600442
3845485339
4828233671
4185376739
5325509891
1327334133
3888388338
5149515999
4415241451
4822648684
4042141011
0839888838
7174671167
3584333339
7904559559
4802161656
7844822477
0984847044
0052148418
7174854219
2253835222
2079662626
1910219999
1018210186
1975159115
1970189054
3973215184
1270897779
2975271268
1913276533
8065979122
3762435855
1620695582
1820944699
5625524412
5810999005
4862424638
4624552544
8065998089
1775675561
6150545702
2459845742
1367325532
8846925057
3731237112
1340134011
5123125152
9661126519
4724447842
7387787737
3242412346
7288787872
8243284324
9956565590
2337114324
2755215340
4904482320
0212014394
2983567972
3253682396
2572925729
5479999957
6411226628
1063501531
8426338848
5423520573
2429582185
5426527257
5479966859
1163949161
0199711467
2233531541
4480529247
0813270445
1101611947
4993939430
1102410545
7766272967
5114151641
2422221542
2106627871
7164876447
9816801118
4166009654
2516145892
9515199117
2318638261
7506160615
2964069044
4105858018
6449397943
7759577595
4136436166
5576888556
2429194224
6129146794
5736393568
7129320290
7476489444
7469110753
6069283144
2266918439
1408483129
2518114144
6380653770
8088118349
4227222471
4381451834
3743114730
6643683164

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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