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:
9850997068
2426256294
0208332080
7118791378
9331891274
3206798228
3850858325
8057992028
3104828968
2222662848
3555552331
1114445251
9738598253
3631458841
8748898841
7413645218
2415352383
1379378241
0080085409
4942464224
1228821618
7212373217
7771873219
1094921416
3337073216
8893763615
2191381519
6446518174
1167522290
6426181994
1467128361
7847575777
1445050044
6667667667
2121122111
7476667567
3730630363
1769062011
0555880585
3583353833
3755908525
1752651496
3669067408
0780630164
1750094596
0204848080
7212772112
9937099707
7228117214
9238769242
7328065023
7338030111
7300548083
0908155557
6657567354
5454787544
3442223244
1635331053
5470831254
0300633045
4929437044
4338933555
4088368241
7355757383
7806680687
6037437037
6770997997
6057983242
6773739338
7300974290
8300412802
7177996446
0322323310
5965756796
0045073450
0944992504
5829293496
7967276706
6905792315
8546872306
0713572594
4469599654
3999952393
7099747962
7763171763
7110877346
8616652343
5268057564
5227297643
3116551764
4354144080
9245615663
4115365662
5001235930
3386938960
3332623632
6356345063
6896944961
8511711587
5188558811
2025992503
5577667759
4141114845
5593494705
8759557901
2136217909
0118792809
9847557991
9664095372
7860078019
8256917419
8768709626
4764774047
8566226625
7000990000
8850000508
9258129855
4429619307
6102485007
6491119347
5984610381
5161115066
1720217207
7720505379
1110510951
8588889385
The puzzle
Given the above hint, what famous landmark do the numbers below refer to?
0763010959
3285511458
0229786780
7415528128
7283575584
3261061311
0849708840
1475774144
0718671877
6025371289
8068105531
2722279682
7458438282
2772777283
3615135631
5115801582
2676665632
8009488409
2654132151
9344589416
1928910928
1123948927
6154914596
8998588895
8324992324
1643224224
2147176217
9591535356
1285939181
4601817356
2370417235
8555119285
6445335346
7707907937
6366631656
3519333351
5608821398
2057071992
2485201852
3663671962
8434774398
5815121853
9629996991
8888888962
6499444269
3025450232
1427212772
5286442456
7165916695
7123921405
1216416016
1223940681
5226961065
6166494251
1708328715
1102040155
1002657416
1751704433
1958315858
1011711711
7701677775
5102602506
1275417742
8702278820
9989545892
4234344835
5978759867
8193678860
4430549892
3047758292
9915679830
5815148990
8470551798
9407513652
8377553337
9473984574
9465399544
8467666168
8573979989
3200033002
9475574979
0140545620
0151463600
2876535628
1534834338
6606336600
4366364375
6066665608
8481348134
7072227228
3633110367
7314103371
0880380073
7575377365
6790873472
0014200361
2350603047
6530080378
9621013375
4701046410
6357747080
9407005232
6601787419
6806339066
8358058588
4421010414
9771379137
4687774786
5025494933
1438918227
6033039201
6628727287
3055939559
2724042872
1065465641
5428755555
6633433336
6329073634
6957125964
3176371039
6977388802
3269196666
6974343741
4337003773
6157111761
6176861678
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.
Comments
Big Ben
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.
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.
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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