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:

0306400406
3764474379
8157688176
8796889787
5402750704
8707706381
0754658173
5759498480
0457460733
3492749036
9240950983
5255620983
6881920509
8197821488
3574230486
3343737403
0980030889
6556821586
8858840988
8822323989
9685903704
4015205714
0985027784
9910928781
3004898716
7975195187
2202221704
7176611716
0178808281
5774417054
2334354723
6747777769
0626262850
3531221553
5369396235
1956694525
8537352535
4553574734
2137352223
6830326765
5554653046
9915591055
1599994561
1392329923
8887778787
7762274067
3599523027
8063373086
7782973047
1877021015
6748861500
6923341933
6298726892
3988149425
2948741063
3708177114
8890789900
2988338298
6228828222
5940880005
4378519024
8457371050
6161030946
8498044422
9498523340
6168516615
8459549548
4470303470
0591090699
9361061193
8653728123
4507790706
5676584151
0522128794
2522505040
8572772257
2803738030
5659555545
0622262220
4726144422
5097903597
8889391283
1722941982
9914881490
8171118572
2628813493
8409981993
3043711403
9135488297
7893108277
5383454338
3895333833
1966796677
3053333333
6806332063
3886729008
3783322779
5805348006
1896328612
3393376996
1376939983
4055845054
3124774323
9238833882
2818338813
9316788623
3868805317
2114303201
2356794295
4016986193
2748209581
5697008652
9388708241
3198696049
0487496699
9529196291
9659999956
5455005042
0688606689
8819918449
7190239448
5109116762
6440419442
3607806675
3334410354
8474716874
2654569452
9774606743
1138139118
3355030365
5043700047
8023530683
5056300505
3214424214
8946199491
5924709225
5253743815
8943769116
5286725971
8946526065

The puzzle

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

2184228401
7757505737
4714430841
9682978629
7759997527
8278038847
5426207841
7965405727
1088908627
9028538697
7597243206
7405952583
2773925722
2487915577
6815967547
6707577700
2295229222
2817287222
0483943810
7525955772
9319035101
0327598255
0782435105
9315748152
6980435225
1342138142
3292295205
5571777155
3351145123
8555388395
5896298896
6684666688
7163000612
5569555695
6482774747
6483507081
6594217085
7483012774
9169052585
5883667235
7803542585
9855571183
4157351840
9307680981
8353346291
9383593983
4803000004
5715551557
2845355204
8157676766
5094970077
7651316677
4499265667
7427710006
5412476666
0004110664
0005575007
3322330023
0010016076
3207026057
5905926785
9553943547
0575204371
8471207855
5157940305
9957175999
8408989948
5175211755
3551135153
0076560956
6182376330
5102470073
3102633412
3453397458
7244306159
7140171140
6454344354
3383433233
1202616010
4188348843
0835734690
6936137394
7508809893
3028293396
3507494994
9399399396
8707807898
3026334603
9494403994
5655505746
3562512890
8975812224
2451195137
4441049180
1165017183
7597595897
1115212169
2099269220
0370397063
8874847884
7552227772
9810791080
1274212472
6912999122
8024992690
6572782140
6252243484
6570912859
1914936179
7277236074
7780108107
3814183331
0671887666
6470884874
1824111192
6670160190
6484171300
0770116600
3774859843
7774469981
5678550325
5654301294
0074070802
0602788020
9654524672
6057777067
0648484448
9458399396
9304593590
5671016705
9477109461
0490039546
0604000462
9274216015
9057145660
0017170701
9651095540
6210921160
5474745774
0508282002

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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