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:

6805831300
7243500614
9885846888
5853556426
9454502839
3885558885
5059204225
7484247784
6803860838
9299333292
8663388382
4341734413
6535444545
8251771855
9519771997
6519741689
8615391970
8347751654
6249768445
4369368848
6113475801
6074409780
9173433153
1491657895
6912901041
8994999099
6452022400
9071291001
1115411451
4033232432
3668282681
9928494994
9048990404
1589559589
5904159409
9928540867
3689565434
5988276949
3628455745
1638282135
7245171442
2704828172
3194994141
6828121812
0281910980
6821184760
6324183170
3784912293
2285107583
7724968296
5579050075
0908555559
5318758433
4401740114
4988333843
5978549706
4308003829
0504056341
5988382080
4908092164
5399191335
2417272722
7995290799
4760545000
1076770676
4795585694
5076169962
4967203020
2462280750
2795737142
9427574745
1104414114
0433143030
8952392909
9956599595
9423567520
9454147413
0934420827
9137354744
8423043508
3600473411
5653915635
0140212383
5462116381
7057213486
3353915396
7287872585
0021306331
3331413443
8869119689
7431544741
7478777487
4865668428
5471511545
5506750075
5476561279
5576505493
7465082129
7468730599
7478794005
2031661919
8366071351
2323589377
4935650292
2065525950
9963116311
2236031233
2405604224
4322533352
8027070000
9889580711
4127426499
6020127226
2778180066
5745079242
1661110266
8929289721
9408960449
0222026002
1766777616
8083591408
5087277456
7346870266
3068492866
7199877206
0662772066
7471677462
8080970898
9999990256
0628667208
8184475041
1880456975
8233107649
8160308141
5764347685
8083333138
4223432434
5154252515
1560161600
1737663671

The puzzle

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

1646161615
4375874443
5425445552
0473900939
5973593959
1943505986
1425900362
4326233740
5373982809
5475973782
8175390530
6853176130
1027094570
4026495157
4221491871
6292776279
1017010177
1989594150
5580080500
9139191831
0299171592
2594615080
0587118980
0585125756
2536520018
1274574102
2537233252
0236113162
3584653348
0795550750
0237877788
5791077072
8016980680
0406260262
6357757667
5437706556
5011842529
8451265036
0255948025
6236917943
1099995055
3593704429
8653315483
4964384025
1276815079
2011912049
0055595085
3424284452
3222523225
5505505975
9348894238
9444667984
6706390673
3075552047
8448776844
9996050238
5171292887
2679750284
4988592942
8708562978
9266929969
0618980980
1610110111
8820928588
6622992926
8616940149
4620910586
6662972680
8620994889
1668965492
3490780125
3320811331
5118875138
5417872100
3325700117
3320772377
5395659633
2173871829
5432824525
3418288214
5958444555
1848585514
8990480344
3669563696
1756557156
8956588080
1699416838
1848557157
1260472387
3990560107
2607420437
1135911519
7608108717
2389993323
7594797457
7689944598
1197794663
2639990797
7631185813
2534967143
8965812582
6435003387
5105859181
7463020484
5935181314
5125115221
5404800404
1921111211
8139280918
6763003633
3197968596
6187446513
7387051848
8767669873
8785549874
3296999339
9387090438
7316414147
8785585858
6147667146
2427427494
2328232280
7727267992
3667884697
7156554167
1188637184
0694854694
0821527092
1576367690
6293934267
1196017016
4123944394
8562266282
9217991227
1505955195
9193963828
1106934077
4522219221
8266030163
8127804094

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