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:

4730206482
1577166752
1726716412
6306716752
9736610754
1661716716
1142422471
8212842481
6256616552
7745460744
9204889473
9105957443
7296986086
7292247164
8135985233
9304930932
9295599295
8294994484
4256224626
7133873738
6039293963
2443838380
7014701477
5405555555
9031779337
5039565978
9431823886
2003799326
6419300068
2041746527
2862668672
0366661053
3286783273
1011049011
3151939125
6807038121
9354268653
7052588053
9260769223
1335183279
9362875728
7667030689
9180071936
7121083862
0323985597
7362937662
9741191141
0660005000
9127892999
7323037723
5420564003
3832564071
2386588917
0423545336
2422523634
2083552018
2322112323
3436773633
5420755224
9822522892
1440941990
5675655667
7477474207
3981313883
6388336188
7041011890
4470435287
4389154608
1099670997
1982253600
2835929708
6856159360
4223155065
6282144385
8801942892
8286998828
2821112821
6833183165
2705955027
4802982440
8485684656
9888384338
0041110411
4996463494
3732332978
4853830354
0604916414
8999214638
6114783411
9737382931
9009399245
1911329651
4375701106
0302137874
4435147177
4433733334
0012620866
1371311313
9905505509
9936196913
8817074801
1647974685
8844720983
1884633981
5681074384
4077774084
3380636901
3333333363
6688680665
1814124781
1963395699
8989292989
7944347993
9402599522
8028998288
8082300496
9968317998
9923294896
9964707244
8944554914
6849494011
4768326621
2222194672
2731422673
9978434071
3743334971
6666626617
2921292122
5534844859
1044194011
9336761713
3657856973
2926698726
3515394726
8877494076
7062556026
0168608416
9773733793
5999554993
9913991773

The puzzle

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

4716365751
1576470749
8652652938
5550023981
1387070986
5590550951
3386835786
4841383747
1383861338
5999272959
1698261686
4586666556
3982483212
1576363711
2533553323
1573369577
4912529020
3673543809
1593463809
3583388716
8460906562
3945734372
9519236900
7480086373
6820038571
5793939573
0524004252
3636766377
6645446404
8689688961
4288223082
9551229145
3333929033
1959195619
1595917559
8730219115
5078853559
0674615589
8378229545
2637497155
3914869368
4987029807
3965500303
4669791728
6975767123
6680556608
3939233993
4914844981
8361733467
9975090779
2887416218
7088724050
1284737569
6478401324
9077380824
2078777780
9062460446
7281771178
6877000766
1784348746
5210526050
3464993949
8497097977
4511211125
4510715775
8414701557
3560237074
4411000377
5510504603
8511835173
7893848271
8594249817
1409964327
6632679371
5159273371
1691173621
8886668317
7174141277
8181169871
5554446355
6633227623
8383343328
6637746737
9828282989
9371175731
3140275787
3959578683
5030473731
9263177333
4355986733
3725627757
7700207770
5869292892
2403112323
5774333470
2770160641
5805224964
6824246981
5763638289
5705168840
1368761183
0506168972
1119447733
8555761970
8854057782
5834554983
3853337583
7332243772
6747363737
1041441170
9990221089
0213204123
6336886043
8344803458
0229332429
3729433088
3475504048
8878421093
2891904423
2468632123
1223913292
4635535646
4067706676
1345651540
1694331991
4345960698
1625581629
1695359005
1636799720
1695602166
7982669629
2657557255
6054866886
5518858568
7379933777
7617946123
6652638620
7528610643
5979932689
6554662517

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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