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:

7099699979
0056707707
1107819888
6372163276
9241114111
1046182853
6356897894
0326140854
0099627368
1372138249
7445899882
6216619109
6582113880
7360120872
2694212670
1108110186
0959449860
2099449602
8808022870
3999913319
8219092628
5491002648
6486558199
0103655445
2463658149
6556555665
9112812298
2240402642
8891558129
8949924499
2518347807
0856004725
7177016823
4284654830
3812430780
8141514805
9080020950
8884840888
2772337727
3630556033
3327013666
1585045266
8167687925
0020313821
9713253995
7737735767
7565883615
8428842829
1545755471
9977917996
8000083008
9188182150
9694764970
3734733473
9646990694
1744430498
6510464198
3813734472
5910993450
0364460178
2523992399
5739353339
4195251191
0104500156
2055555025
4193362251
5535311436
2175961890
0125299976
5593567150
2819813991
5265777527
4988684988
0269199102
9078798887
4979148030
4668640192
0079723870
0085707185
5075735035
6591225917
6012460640
5029809022
5632225322
8964599666
5632528411
6627499820
6022555919
6699223333
5019213197
6302540463
1003189413
2050362016
4923138128
2903722174
8902339980
2853532525
1081771111
1323121313
6900809019
0428220282
9641144191
3696963669
0538668043
4472994794
9448947206
0148915911
0478969828
0698624960
0478601041
5611615661
2369131293
3783977897
3735537753
1251771315
3759588916
3603533737
3731509652
1733565778
2615502394
4393717178
7861667108
6728869849
3230264144
7539652479
7689759278
9422062409
7147124174
7668667808
4060608446
7685549601
9730395653
7097835656
6312639096
8447293002
3996797695
5055156501
6484849658
9202295042
3633333356

The puzzle

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

4004633571
4921423438
1123042070
1487735451
1127567301
1144774214
4021505244
9003400003
6927726992
7488648787
1614164176
1111711077
6138818153
0800330998
2777112727
8164031157
2260811958
8977211927
8871811957
2712067153
8628577441
9708145896
8553072021
2626577491
9524875986
7769779496
2554665456
7949447980
0227778021
2111552641
1226989532
0161255071
6247512297
1111508743
1208565827
6661511655
1244924444
1117271912
1220812212
0208228880
7632236676
0570808088
4474666444
5817357181
8380338393
4310388095
0410219583
7533309989
0687853655
4872318419
0582755282
3292002293
7973373933
7161818163
9886999989
3282365948
7583089546
0171957594
9802998464
7281758801
5962353629
4991941992
6163383663
4442024410
2872378323
2633054390
5352324913
9540648420
6831323363
0591720422
4254743752
9505554409
2535262654
0779703797
6733375136
2072652194
7496473437
3030274706
4101994499
0034504756
9799596357
0000059050
2352251223
8357853884
7753557573
0852256884
1133053888
3662457873
6465756354
6427151273
1497481386
5197494723
5173765617
0392761273
7573168695
3497798979
0373433733
5594099540
7173671777
8712188111
0621751445
6658770384
0319251826
3778713644
2689746459
6114777111
6677227776
3318533131
0689269908
2721718772
3313515533
2368606863
5977115397
5666666065
9939779399
6343675835
4093366833
9156879893
8468975563
8432869868
2179391982
2166341971
3066235145
0646298083
3179308266
6033770637
3473043944
5149049941
0126302006
2562252655
3395335953
7896286927
0369500608
2080828022
3489993439
0499365825
2895325930
3485359729
3096592065
6395379454

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.

Post a comment