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:

1808368490
1819472120
4518091540
5840365124
1849344671
4802333823
5659359956
1810001000
7349097445
1598331313
0258959839
0849159432
3549489423
4438519832
9116059022
8925359832
4413341434
8888389830
9979779949
6520554023
5437400489
4274604915
6196190079
8937495026
8145694906
7944994976
6664656409
6500707015
3211193121
3800000883
1292442691
8581131851
9595962659
5374409347
2755557920
1516832829
6325001840
5826129827
6957437651
6756907650
6737539475
3229219465
1817866450
4120634850
1415070470
6599919465
7741914974
4616661455
8708830870
0397772350
9945974589
6366666323
9509158918
4353346553
1536315763
4943076363
8788144763
2737878948
6341076558
1973066363
5850740379
1642036160
4808717853
8668508092
5856705533
1856777557
4668747666
5850505508
5802025008
8606787683
3489755538
8985395769
3072395798
1407196938
1324655565
3338338634
5899925989
5969597595
9602629068
7676850786
2451335113
5987599797
2806922629
2196321164
3626332636
3407386387
2811317170
2806376887
2887344331
2106373504
2556116532
5880819258
0225001325
4867684767
4733374303
5505416303
5499719203
1872404367
3994274338
8132871963
3177317734
6331335316
0800270420
0083881307
9295994425
5810811424
9692311717
6175430436
1977090426
4162212405
1390881318
0832532328
4129545445
1035433000
9535539565
0539587929
4535487782
4995572979
9335526604
0322574566
5598337395
6134441136
3335566543
7866786176
5255554026
9288031125
0641681336
2523976195
2031836133
9880636526
5903712759
3329310334
0693090754
9164511159
5391896354
9343994953
3921112629
9333616339
1033310354
1757571757

The puzzle

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

0420224241
7671216141
0736612640
9980227747
8386890651
4746116744
9225212249
9910390631
2402424130
5541517451
1041741707
4094419904
3503375038
0690308493
7170737018
1701215037
3193948403
8054931434
2237830017
7796947438
7648077474
3651365856
9580559090
7186586766
8998199891
3188143376
8641178097
9188583376
9586578169
8676043954
3185582904
9770356594
8448166599
8735558549
6325296928
5955776529
5337456743
2555668592
4894582954
9962998568
5988536836
2921736986
5964576186
0530673164
7920492236
9921996216
3883873388
3222532956
3882383236
2391623164
0461713773
1285834657
0588213783
6634365275
7023234573
1556515644
5557464855
8588333588
7377733777
7537379573
2916096912
3555455544
4437777742
0269449229
5702330050
3712722579
4466757327
3589742855
4766395748
5462424247
4037818179
5704049939
7815349515
8716740569
7608670612
8858119875
5395579563
4890140619
4474427474
2882328932
4553254555
6394334633
5080085000
2964026309
5747574574
5743584422
5563205527
2377510383
5957040536
5347540084
9962808827
1092839606
3019017785
4068191213
1966128086
6612916219
1076171160
3268025826
9092808829
2969896892
3911498476
3042070589
9262018574
0602517289
6488418946
8787574587
9682288269
4549505449
4996790976
7147418474
2647664977
0699886809
0000000049
3243324803
7377777836
7093677809
3962884809
4329206909
3265467839
8836967473
8722228729
3330007053
7577075300
6688682862
3319934396
2734278063
1199575792
8867374800
2800727990
4142438899
7445190164
2251252164
7747015857
2703219154
0316255804
4595599854
4568458704
2799775929
1000610160
5252332255

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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