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:

2464932030
2489383643
1582383781
2390941072
8482989240
8482555882
8175351351
5550755150
2384929343
1499349499
8851181652
4647778624
0000103018
2567050762
3409993980
0436698988
1451609052
3547470664
5610753622
9009190088
9342777272
5703444402
2995222992
7151171551
9026777096
2042742123
9351205211
7995209834
2793199364
5724781848
1299312939
2525253222
1310713471
9996869680
6323332886
6966252221
0695152888
6264552239
0282413236
7640963480
1932591294
1933757098
3505707272
5903460919
1953564129
4960554536
1833031800
3805000000
7502757750
1953455444
6382969228
7035775577
3364996393
4885288485
0997775909
3384929519
7064904554
0857253714
7932227511
7062940322
7222272232
0450509546
3376967397
8948338983
1801331088
3143031292
5492738938
6747002988
4209067512
5751939593
3402575446
3040872834
0327177067
5900155834
1334455333
6454775464
7505057017
4421323134
7828876808
3882382343
9201120450
8223553760
6870764850
9676361410
3011611743
1119913719
3324369443
4354544853
2002626720
1444651864
2286666032
2765867825
9931091310
0080037800
3455334605
5677897605
6991536800
4045267300
9949366615
1727936308
8653565635
0100700700
7166776776
7581445044
6603993366
7603565920
8553593790
8653734164
8653650132
7601492795
0612626011
6898568869
2201220222
9207002077
3636938939
2807567383
6291039156
0632687871
0201284750
3608157537
5888572885
0000810809
4432461724
9739943879
1957171959
5115012829
5612872809
6511860879
5538912834
1084712804
8606966666
5290902250
0464406449
6985989588
8485995888
6985921950
8400965050
8266959245
5986962594
9265938899

The puzzle

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

4506432220
7706403819
2725711040
1725457791
7606761636
0705750770
7662727676
7776474747
4522152211
1994741115
3200205273
7039202739
8782308573
8078770108
1076118067
0622618103
5426508078
4618508033
6677908208
4922514563
5182089837
9996375587
9325349326
1847253917
6891852387
5539335924
2545723507
3811159381
6822642816
5833785337
8725773257
6514136444
5275777256
7214032259
6386676940
0939932900
2966278296
9599563959
7791939297
4446666444
3322753372
2657232752
2260292260
3777713777
5555114052
8130093772
4846842772
0375012277
1854713372
9404894770
2434622444
1588588159
2681522152
0723880028
2713777772
2724701342
2488626542
1728750615
0423541017
7784638914
9698698869
1983881838
7189381988
8656005570
4930339333
8630329463
8956698065
4933011719
5689669559
7190806845
0680321881
5594947853
8255527888
5191626566
0545296088
3333597583
4446849068
8886829886
7879717028
1451846851
9555942529
5108150180
1711111870
2902896802
5159710725
5064410520
1432151870
0590152820
0898316729
3373681700
8124584234
3370530555
3001333313
7384833474
2516515255
8000581460
3524571434
2376563110
3006685919
7311526928
5345337354
2461881672
7636666376
4949999041
4775734275
4269296372
1627799042
2768669374
3049631249
2786989371
8161856831
1502001260
9624452946
7717717712
2782575728
7455876766
1546501266
9899955739
4473356868
0970605722
0934092970
3198335917
4371915000
6040930971
2864492017
9092592205
9966336977
2502090072
6100015060
3757535317
3473772439
5604819534
3970975024
1396772227
4548219859
9999979989
0777270224
3206332802
3473373437
1115115051

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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