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:
9788930083
5980927607
9568068984
5961982721
1061776007
5665969555
7568957756
3989938999
9880089109
2485761508
2810156138
6414724969
2235546959
7861178118
8584458854
1451151111
9230726077
2615521662
4833434783
7799118791
1613831608
3379997843
6206834643
0398697773
0512892898
9016611878
9839068378
6647936690
1852281996
1108456637
7630015696
3173713207
3996635996
6606966690
1971131937
4635254826
7503660763
1043154846
7887264261
8175810291
5590958096
6607060769
7314314831
1662266261
4063460433
5359207860
4948195743
4165695638
5825895448
6399191643
9025225795
4848464848
7006607468
8073707838
5475140575
3476106043
1128119325
1436104149
1924318413
1577117715
5486185664
5176811158
3938083933
6677657653
5959757299
6242224810
2721172241
1468856619
0995922650
0171907294
1975657259
8105876293
6504500331
9536652622
4534658139
5034981662
6576996665
3584688543
4034637406
9583455944
5532555525
8988318533
4712102195
5240252523
0337679693
8231318293
7655657675
2755802158
3929129531
7272372173
3061553633
3918859452
1798073449
4973459232
7783378431
2512441259
2333253632
4440373404
3240629346
6059900995
0141544751
4961544465
1830133011
4846348712
4856982228
0951356375
0846996858
1099502724
7171418674
4005055408
1991615692
4343534854
2618015674
3493248658
6104414908
2913014608
6348745778
2798705320
4476909373
4441624360
4340295933
6298994486
0030005360
7927927973
7338709837
3343334325
The puzzle
Given the above hint, what famous landmark do the numbers below refer to?
7809069478
3479011385
9859756237
1862541392
7874777748
9252722222
2809129192
1498585193
3367000603
8880668708
4001405409
1877881827
1393996153
2735496523
8084601405
9525805438
6793488807
3292085209
1978398528
0141866251
9889956639
8163855631
3398396038
1665670651
5065656501
9909505192
7822967229
2139291932
5829192295
7321020772
9616916669
5629964866
2131212921
0119139516
2822996851
7302261882
7683222282
6934139194
9693199996
1070110117
1990343968
6994124583
1981261483
1883173704
9984385489
4335317353
3394363394
6613536215
6546554666
3630214235
6895056214
4731167264
4938093255
2080213336
6049533984
0449045371
4645054905
4997540715
0949339930
8898588882
6004044000
4447544744
4649242496
0322872204
3845568256
2864768656
8959878156
8957197155
3756773456
2678268227
4016006104
5599254629
0233777307
6640996660
4727027230
6901790097
6942767770
5641021734
5221475109
9941904938
5632983560
7198299228
2605929255
9221325191
2269333299
2261940600
2208346587
9269327509
1798941801
9796358501
0444940440
1321422341
2893333729
3896198983
1895323511
3322491075
3826425459
1341994282
3394375843
4907707099
6871568582
8625882558
8299777879
9879743929
4407783912
6271503414
6176704258
9629719952
8718888793
1722362054
2708401720
1903307397
8658338888
9703800988
8713117138
1722272221
6959494967
7455884858
0092192009
6168966114
5284112214
0482168283
6162116917
6088974993
6282456465
0018899954
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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