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:

1326219153
8683574193
3673136550
1618930205
4608926748
8118555111
1603230130
4674977696
3386883833
2628552623
6702337677
6511115610
0768676067
4667776477
2689778622
6762340784
6681673554
0582304433
2661750973
2689596534
8222644009
2876634688
0909171354
1383438627
7600838074
4684734678
8174174137
0822028029
3814141388
6454767454
4135251134
4978879998
6526526762
3425545454
4547354544
3925306795
3425547252
3525352530
3517517578
4426539038
8641720651
2027340692
7513055812
6837645889
9755256156
6667556916
4493843189
9228448892
5556655662
2520020557
8218174726
8191533912
1614585796
0691592340
1511520648
9218192189
1118411881
8888558688
3514533551
8691018609
3180601331
2846772847
1483771481
2345557553
0355955353
3345784181
1245790132
2356661113
2186745727
3385915595
5744455498
5269765251
1500282481
9704129801
8579252407
9989554998
5825528857
8804886284
7747762477
7100575201
2437625042
0039302773
9881925142
5120115186
9135212478
3000393006
0160000106
8728727778
1322212142
4855825482
1338939666
6438272716
6773992826
3318724114
7651747593
3458751435
7761667671
6314944134
7833553837
1628222181
9986989977
0000110610
6663280263
4424942294
7577353771
4205010671
0951150994
6491013274
4991540672
2217289791
4303535353
2044648264
4759154714
3246333433
0333773370
4359362980
4006393750
1359777907
4343772684
4236683387
8212228817
4111941912
1188281266
9299097096
3233332823
8180091817
0690721013
1203937966
8974342012
8378508012
0557770057
3352356235
6634116423
7077740677
2957552745
9640810725
8914454727
2167256245
1158440753
9510752747

The puzzle

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

2448343278
0770990726
3142151320
1216111426
3144338149
3841293476
8145411176
8503735720
8516931178
8248143340
7480843412
2965961236
2146917474
7800542111
3882782339
4986595449
7865878868
3642943240
7810980071
2107702017
8402127499
0609475693
0124161498
0715782850
5812768127
0928110892
5195891191
2612060215
5709497945
8834744377
2568006250
8008228580
8057458408
2561026101
0738778307
8568707204
2008776338
2568284114
0078007558
8051299297
1920277833
8565553039
5937003833
3761673833
2146875179
5337797893
5585375831
7433743274
9909909039
5195195133
9877379079
8674077464
2927727727
6919199991
2044114401
6917744701
2604157467
6824708200
2974361233
2914704273
5964494645
1797271777
4720320774
3729662972
7348539585
5724346502
5729459235
6747235428
1794309659
7327376524
4959693638
2955108238
3410011208
7312656618
3716613535
1885518518
8638353638
5669656635
1302001235
3293293224
5851951594
1999977199
5631525163
0012902192
5655557336
6024657393
8388373133
6879377193
1329457169
0698957193
5377851300
4443507553
9413496768
2916471732
9436523196
9316991939
9431444444
2303531202
4647878677
5962466252
0954505674
3425530898
9354106715
5821536963
0856180474
0924119912
9459195941
5361213125
3829899882
0916553160
7662664277
2323322238
2995002952
2539229875
3912192331
6910299252
4071062835
0250502277
4728222831
5588064867
4007707094
6623236236
1105115100
3596667239
7777115766
6942835134
6073075730
9413017236
4634605069
0145336230
9385894381
5055656054
4333493424
6544969445
6474774646
2869079486
4049554481
9110794485
5059996325
5054557624

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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