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:

7430899507
7571560955
1466208027
7571787349
1572561549
9760776196
7430804770
1602505055
3575223553
7391577753
3657776354
2070340123
3553531265
9999939995
4929552924
9179071954
3148252093
6233636965
7062079124
3630970225
8821810820
9291792790
0702737200
9226660922
7333374933
8223232220
7108499922
5607592932
9716512930
0091862793
7418268704
1104711766
8400639615
7060466535
7038745614
4054555504
1138281011
8368268362
8410748804
7008666088
3723273227
8117977788
4641746714
1541611055
7929777292
8921787116
7743236913
8113005172
3927794884
3123971737
1730010300
6787386578
2574372277
9941000941
8693553836
2797529150
6334057364
8980378321
2697360592
2787321194
3338338731
1149133591
4844448424
9179991174
7675751667
1817631177
3889238694
3303551451
4357831161
3442998437
3354156151
6737500517
9698146690
8734365318
3381105960
8734136744
4746344746
6688366883
3794694477
9351519351
2147582887
8072982813
0534595485
3789375877
4940891887
6466777674
9177791887
9915585915
2844582524
1362222263
9477000040
5340634446
4726747626
8847088874
7742377793
7747303915
4746100421
9447046695
4442395154
7740036903
6299596269
0900305000
7645262624
4508340340
5248752885
7999743383
5509352402
5249345957
7596511138
4900321978
3054560518
9019641887
3219931767
3068624511
3212167650
3334134314
3018737100
9252129552
6011616102
9069506905
6220533585
3696413156
0392656785
2785553554
0329033554
8553533255
0757565750
0011116580
4548454584
0838838056
0888976432
5287815984
6865820693
3285920506
5822985212
0832770070
7675455677
6827962798
3685886518
5218662128

The puzzle

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

5378753783
4622447246
5949965294
1228222415
0070774200
2705473445
7153343746
5900666414
8873075243
8731644715
3557678046
1676682296
9677916422
1644064205
1577700354
3674773731
1842004121
8517771578
7777277777
9656666666
4619854627
9768218361
7399959227
1581857560
0807010661
0555558530
6412214263
8852687627
6437768347
3536550361
0217820810
9090049085
5554405544
7787776873
4930990348
4026290345
0365899048
2408020318
7510220045
5965200188
8044141644
4470707747
4938666839
8735555878
3794774777
8734583239
4030654020
3874759819
8934766829
4930568042
1226930685
1345850584
4312032626
7469202908
1356472528
8888338588
0404030405
6227772426
5405350934
6144252674
9715020375
3245378297
5277928192
1841724638
7415470283
9607790673
6268026086
5473774375
5919998198
4227324237
9230997035
9547777985
6023732269
9202691099
2630766653
9034191191
6593779059
2642622266
1700700010
6227322626
3843834381
5705775015
5376763567
9708794876
9868996283
1017673215
8935793273
6627896517
5938976397
0484464275
2525145212
5585959358
5060008658
2665216926
2612119266
4080818626
5446859266
7751159257
8622946922
0714049326
4988888699
9979479499
2323132102
0101440144
7021771260
9287071649
5378339269
4475131194
5085480100
0545235149
0192001999
5091699066
0822880380
0624426644
0679171106
0129145884
5672101989
0622002826
0079676489
2699853837
2504755527
1594311130
2529052502
1743933437
3924779939
2709904393
1954735180
2544932992
3529713762
1794014912
2667456749
3126539385
8686500824
3796574571
8123103660
8656158658
3187573837
3621443691
0793660363
8767577677

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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