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:

2509339295
8917222877
2295121929
1618181166
4298778342
2208343814
8298238089
2299175542
4213186027
8218701882
2492029049
9932239727
8808824588
3636380365
9707790070
5134290077
7641899180
0781430567
6570990788
0315529069
9877398973
6602866662
8794689896
7621727672
7911797157
9871703099
7817309795
9717894078
6917700343
5611775385
1846644168
8499198987
1511751175
9493893938
8628558858
9649182282
1646779558
9449654085
1699574885
1417754615
4534230023
1174254438
6523678669
8186215041
6446726950
4176716776
7530207221
6224868822
8446224482
1633633631
4699234666
6177044230
8308836692
0370699562
0912074239
0349334690
6966992669
3264274236
0603334602
5755549562
4968333653
7970597057
7474227477
1732637226
8738998378
7970507572
1930521198
7472679733
7475969000
7778387439
7099392852
2093382160
2056013493
7697534701
2796305321
2437337442
7794040477
6056050005
6691566565
7089202201
1847784177
2205505542
9369361963
5282252286
8007116085
1154215272
7971261086
9223056582
0350560282
8019906175
3740670437
5253555235
7683733396
1321939119
3957397337
5243767037
7653907239
1783702140
1880638720
3653758037
3335735773
9771151797
4161981696
9009090002
5535131557
6985050076
1514951555
1696255792
9440731793
4328881707
5876766785
7249292429
3199793391
2963432092
3960130133
3979166218
5166156670
5210494780
7296780364
3166408776
2288932908
6399791376
4455447645
3004004307
3093312403
1113617946
8133241308
0936942933
6394631346
1399231403
1357774058
3317730909
3372682916
4366675011
9953747389
4703774437
3857975587
3976373636
9377636067
1262712172

The puzzle

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

4895242887
6793390903
1855249713
4157373859
6157948205
1594394161
6815996565
6857969979
4177224147
1193717171
1787812078
1616391136
6065946509
9902961099
3338113893
0266616008
8327611533
5922083076
6129841139
8011841038
1002025189
9522942460
3028259047
1004287099
9033941804
0527957772
9904009494
1022212221
3035953503
1423036440
1512405846
6952892279
2562309933
6782435800
3976459939
2623112863
6166105146
9939959909
3585335830
2112121271
1520105112
8883238923
7778892778
6366656618
6236336726
8889292712
6844236078
2251536912
0096706922
1406335723
8284124821
8196098010
9220522259
6925262542
5510990099
8524164238
6195125207
8980040450
9910177959
5189573041
3949431449
1113443115
8619818936
1311181331
1508115940
6283431946
0555715980
4981835930
7341711449
9882381949
4512082356
2437918825
9103015178
9571918775
1854433855
3731313373
7541542715
8885518355
3275735127
8828488846
3728552579
5971390248
3425841413
6664340313
6246457352
3039990032
0381881253
5001850518
7339987379
4989949448
6993899366
8920778898
8397008072
4736734774
5729199217
4929167984
5799816404
8933845700
4993272511
5339184294
5141010041
2465562256
2287022022
3847270334
3766373773
3761502916
2766790333
5766018081
2441390145
2867060513
2080673729
0489897728
1640621722
2459563329
4013457322
8598353608
2632666322
9129921292
7527257722
3999397329
4774000597
5275207026
9487431082
0924537023
4036637727
1562116052
4509090586
0667707767
0909901099
7327337327
7579585757
8733773178
1696691696
2626649692
4255555624
8145499624
5598281157
9208893696
6033349627
4944293618

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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