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:
1199141199
6611993761
7921759721
7586959668
0757898727
0491949141
5116499699
8895998769
1963859691
0430215612
7893726052
2736371515
3690835589
1112313029
7755770555
9925525982
6333636619
1625121552
3818188881
3788338437
7414555444
9569755799
9889366504
9760121815
9768106770
3714173143
9415792958
2399332866
0644334266
5636532938
4152812289
8881110886
7442934249
8488884968
8953935948
8121662318
7560417673
8884997973
8511794432
8814817433
4493398453
1696667611
9399819938
9937797378
7447704473
1522859663
9522826523
7522873063
8592988348
6549996469
5398688593
9532889933
1323421421
8822285282
2853997843
1074727762
5036537070
2334942034
2336999639
1863228536
3674746777
5856258265
2080770207
1278474728
1518686558
7495141951
5035335503
5518128567
5595784093
7095653886
1598690512
1212740335
0641464071
8825456284
8552257255
6455772465
0849452284
5633356285
0245002785
9048964275
7893967275
6528994384
2956874636
0359220559
5145411614
6810114380
0999990909
5187778514
2962229426
5161771654
3557957392
6756872685
0072928099
3113313135
4674213635
0478173637
4582478135
2211378057
0352772732
2791280662
2911124811
2791223042
2911162430
2191717121
3710878170
2951292191
5716115911
6217276666
9074303075
3955335353
1015351503
3510933313
3070545364
1164376903
3014386382
9074959431
3075594077
8819151829
3343931984
8882226839
6033393586
3275651839
4721638880
8936050514
2535953936
8019093819
The puzzle
Given the above hint, what famous landmark do the numbers below refer to?
0870541155
4580292383
7570929427
6070902477
6570976576
7093393063
1682211221
0604560605
4870220042
0732575897
2521717258
0878566342
2421163003
9722112299
4428774448
0631563005
2552155227
0771107777
6318771865
3456643364
3891738979
1065751660
5456347470
6486760979
6866793860
5461735008
3368784642
3651369051
9663377088
7099161771
7914271935
0570979750
7300107331
8089661098
2777777775
8399339988
3411613116
9408200942
6922992282
3661916639
3415981591
3958663589
7461271936
3421613114
3922933729
5229225830
4343981990
1878388606
3116871830
8980778890
4454452434
5552225605
9195181916
3340048370
3818444453
0669134457
9105450254
3589893921
3443333434
1111484351
2595595257
4966446923
5002760597
0066466667
3075067455
5351297627
5969657925
7888557868
9998599857
2577577925
2082263828
0006116630
7056155804
5375303803
6064077432
2050161754
3356151316
6745474577
8080380009
7074674670
2069000092
0949851104
8859951174
6514218624
7489458876
1611111166
1111151614
1451112174
8363538656
6565656801
3881076556
7408056752
2950757606
2925856550
7772779652
5555655626
6706667610
5747772577
5605056503
1908817888
1906332513
4383716138
4203322351
1208318125
4988338398
0203909290
5521818858
1326232113
7119712217
2022729290
8923506871
2952740143
8722557822
7515252577
5994779990
2123912332
9359133191
6882865628
8835637856
5003035018
8884958984
9226655011
0745158883
2117267526
1967838986
1526165528
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.
Post a comment