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:

0033033000
4434444444
2988628868
7079808507
4393393433
7079388589
4074474411
0073662759
2483445925
4023803075
9155170883
0536076864
8275974504
3493485845
1360274203
9749779994
0052005302
5158084580
6606260265
6603806863
1321651212
1314933075
6027132176
8727474236
0318251180
1111131113
9592659260
6750007085
4224332432
7356573576
1024121102
9711227619
8078577000
9929191991
2494994449
1019926735
8724112724
2024572935
1071172919
1518589597
9863118263
7479498447
0777550673
2258285722
5398393895
9535695242
2205858423
1865850347
1293518472
7568653497
9582799852
0871448404
1731332113
8257656287
6710717017
8570349492
0832133953
9737794674
6717705029
9730676497
5222852825
7166117968
1113531852
2222102251
0032970390
4233037855
8649512822
6630437522
5822902355
0436470858
2206566661
4681048684
1400800008
2924774422
1733177113
4933761519
2213106650
4601148967
1900822647
1280871712
2643873176
5811172196
7052471102
2635175105
0237475676
9956952996
5757555675
1344171845
3373473134
1811381103
7300060703
2163616723
1315661439
3263432463
9996918269
0153416729
4669261223
3482830727
0502162763
2669160463
8130561162
1094925722
8317985629
4500620626
0128817128
7919117669
6206220126
5655265652
7757118798
1225511521
8662478744
9716786084
8590470787
2109998083
7590295727
7889997784
7909298027
6636880683
9174595374
7772475742
0366630666
2999219926
5357753775
0538000587
5582556428
3759016927
5338630288
8868830976
7123739788
0911800626
3983133939
5588585880
2862992298
1042000414
4734933734
5048581553
2944760799
5532147433
4733139950
3882115894

The puzzle

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

0692660696
0403504230
4510641641
8058488085
5142952912
4592547484
0702524055
0602660867
0443609548
8100635686
6750576605
5144747159
0005000279
2220033420
7114733417
8525677609
6582810279
3816507479
6837077100
6825133119
0333868103
0554005854
4512741765
8850535084
7836336787
2182238783
3026135885
1249546709
8097401804
7980766787
7173239566
7133207603
7572284482
7117545687
1516548948
3133553135
7516229611
0573070575
7613913363
1572992275
3166021713
5046300812
8116781540
1033154198
1116782143
8611716161
3069806600
5156056550
1433141731
5141111151
7297503567
7249752210
7297674761
3297748325
7210987343
3247536525
7339779393
7253722273
6210960996
7695447574
2433232223
4741974144
0403114341
0976446974
4276372062
4236984252
4471438386
2703475425
2413498540
0403953327
6542848105
5232104006
5942895550
5540291608
0949109877
6542155215
5939656353
4990949994
0730808173
0849209949
9344744943
0437677144
0519951915
7791419774
2125952152
9194907982
0337739275
9719975758
9537939636
9749544369
3707372370
3353403634
6979776792
2562622156
7044778340
5571476130
5690276334
1318477142
0967973354
9885222396
7358373333
9248644966
9566259269
6049847989
3775777757
6048724361
7266739170
9748763373
9748829879
9344370040
8639297943
4943088903
7670575148
8756879755
8910871104
7837777833
9991595155
7830038900
5575575754
4885881548
2288323428
1600809698
5504557044
8899989186
9791971196
6259671446
0624339496
1780727196
0825409088
6657487694
4126358401
6614372164
0914451058
0914284368
4824342219
0114310014
5984248556
4926142661
4637466443
0824484040

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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