Source Intelligence, Context and Aggregation

Part of the Signal Intelligence guide, which indexes every topic.

Source Intelligence

Not all sources are equal. The system implements a dual classification to prioritize authoritative information.

Source Tiers (Authority Ranking)

Tier	Sources	Characteristics
Tier 1	Reuters, AP News, AFP, Bloomberg, White House, Pentagon	Wire services and official government—fastest, most reliable
Tier 2	BBC, The Guardian, Al Jazeera, CNBC, Financial Times	Major outlets—high editorial standards, some latency
Tier 3	Defense One, Bellingcat, Foreign Policy, MIT Tech Review	Domain specialists—deep expertise, narrower scope
Tier 4	Hacker News, The Verge, VentureBeat, Yahoo Finance	Useful signal but requires corroboration

When multiple sources report the same story, the lowest tier (most authoritative) source is displayed as the primary, with others listed as corroborating.

Source Types (Categorical)

Sources are also categorized by function for triangulation detection:

Wire - News agencies (Reuters, AP, AFP, Bloomberg)
Gov - Official government (White House, Pentagon, State Dept, Fed, SEC)
Intel - Defense/security specialists (Defense One, Bellingcat, Krebs)
Mainstream - Major news outlets (BBC, Guardian, NPR, Al Jazeera)
Market - Financial press (CNBC, MarketWatch, Financial Times)
Tech - Technology coverage (Hacker News, Ars Technica, MIT Tech Review)

Propaganda Risk Indicators

The dashboard visually flags sources with known state affiliations or propaganda risk, enabling users to appropriately weight information from these outlets. Risk Levels

Level	Visual	Meaning
High	⚠ State Media or Official Government Source (red)	Direct state control or ownership; government publishers use the type-aware official-source label
Medium	! Caution (orange)	Significant state influence or funding
Low	(none)	Explicitly reviewed independent editorial control
Unknown	? Unreviewed (muted)	Provenance not yet reviewed — not an independence claim

Every configured feed has an explicit per-dimension declaration of Reviewed or Unknown. CI requires that inventory to match the configured feed names exactly, so additions, removals, and alias changes cannot silently inherit a default. Absence from the reviewed registry defaults to Unknown, never Low. A missing badge only means independent journalism when the source has an explicit Low classification; unclassified feeds show ? Unreviewed so missing data cannot be mistaken for a positive editorial assessment. Flagged Sources (selected examples)

Source	Risk Level	State Affiliation	Notes
Xinhua	High	China (CCP)	Official news agency of PRC
TASS	High	Russia	State-owned news agency
RT	High	Russia	Registered foreign agent in US
CGTN	High	China (CCP)	China Global Television Network
PressTV	High	Iran	IRIB subsidiary
MIIT (China)	High	China	Ministry of Industry and IT official feed
MOFCOM (China)	High	China	Ministry of Commerce official feed
Al Jazeera	Medium	Qatar	Qatari government funded
TRT World	Medium	Turkey	Turkish state broadcaster

Display Locations Propaganda risk badges appear in:

Cluster primary source: Badge next to the main source name
Publisher roster: In the expandable roster for a story, each publisher row shows its tier chip and the most severe risk marker across its feeds
Cluster view: Visible when expanding multi-source clusters

Why Include State Media? State-controlled outlets are included rather than filtered because:

Signal Value: What state media reports (and omits) reveals government priorities
Rapid Response: State media often breaks domestic news faster than international outlets
Narrative Analysis: Understanding how events are framed by different governments
Completeness: Excluding them creates blind spots in coverage

The badges ensure users can contextualize state media reports rather than unknowingly treating them as independent journalism.

Signal Context (“Why It Matters”)

Every signal includes contextual information explaining its analytical significance:

Context Fields

Field	Purpose	Example
Why It Matters	Analytical significance	”Market moved while news coverage stayed low”
Actionable Insight	What to do next	”Monitor for breaking news that could explain the move”
Confidence Note	Signal reliability caveats	”Higher confidence if multiple markets align”

Signal-Specific Context

Signal	Why It Matters
Prediction Leading	A prediction market moved while news coverage of the topic stayed low—the market may be reacting to information that has not been reported yet
Silent Divergence	Market moving without identifiable catalyst—possible insider knowledge, algorithmic trading, or unreported development
Velocity Spike	Story accelerating across multiple sources—indicates growing significance and potential for market/policy impact
Triangulation	The “authority triangle” (wire + government + intel) aligned—gold standard for breaking news confirmation
Flow-Price Divergence	Supply disruption not yet reflected in prices—potential information edge or markets have better information
Hotspot Escalation	Geopolitical hotspot showing escalation across news, instability, convergence, and military presence

This contextual layer transforms raw alerts into actionable intelligence by explaining the analytical reasoning behind each signal.

Energy Flow Detection

The correlation engine detects signals related to energy infrastructure and commodity markets.

Pipeline Keywords

The system monitors news for pipeline-related events: Infrastructure terms: pipeline, pipeline explosion, pipeline leak, pipeline attack, pipeline sabotage, pipeline disruption, nord stream, keystone, druzhba Flow indicators: gas flow, oil flow, supply disruption, transit halt, capacity reduction

Flow Drop Signals

When news mentions flow disruptions, two signal types may trigger:

Signal	Criteria	Meaning
Flow Drop	Pipeline keywords + disruption terms	Potential supply interruption
Flow-Price Divergence	Flow drop news + oil price stable (< $1.50 move)	Markets not yet pricing in disruption

Why This Matters

Energy supply disruptions create cascading effects:

Immediate: Spot price volatility
Short-term: Industrial production impacts
Long-term: Geopolitical leverage shifts

Early detection of flow drops—especially when markets haven’t reacted—provides an information edge.

Signal Aggregator

The Signal Aggregator is the central nervous system that collects, groups, and summarizes intelligence signals from all data sources.

What It Aggregates

Signal Type	Source	Frequency
`military_flight`	OpenSky ADS-B	Real-time
`military_vessel`	AIS WebSocket	Real-time
`protest`	ACLED + GDELT	Hourly
`internet_outage`	Cloudflare Radar	5 min
`ais_disruption`	AIS analysis	Real-time

Country-Level Grouping

All signals are grouped by country code, creating a unified view:

{
  country: 'UA',  // Ukraine
  countryName: 'Ukraine',
  totalCount: 15,
  highSeverityCount: 3,
  signalTypes: Set(['military_flight', 'protest', 'internet_outage']),
  signals: [/* all signals for this country */]
}

Regional Convergence Detection

The aggregator identifies geographic convergence—when multiple signal types cluster in the same region:

Convergence Level	Criteria	Alert Priority
Critical	4+ signal types within 200km	Immediate
High	3 signal types within 200km	High
Medium	2 signal types within 200km	Normal

Summary Output

The aggregator provides a real-time summary for dashboards and AI context:

[SIGNAL SUMMARY]
Top Countries: Ukraine (15 signals), Iran (12), Taiwan (8)
Convergence Zones: Baltic Sea (military_flight + military_vessel),
                   Tehran (protest + internet_outage)
Active Signal Types: 5 of 5
Total Signals: 47

Backed by endpoints

Signal family	Endpoint	Notes
Company enrichment	`GET /api/intelligence/v1/get-company-enrichment`	SEC EDGAR identity + recent filings (via ticker→CIK resolution), market profile, earnings surprises, and news mentions for one company.
Company activity signals	`GET /api/intelligence/v1/list-company-signals`	Classified timestamped signals from SEC 8-K material events and news mentions. Earnings surprises stay in enrichment because fiscal period end is not report time.
SEC filing search	`GET /api/intelligence/v1/search-sec-filings`	Full-text search over SEC EDGAR filings with form-type and date-range filters.
Material events stream	`GET /api/intelligence/v1/list-material-events`	Market-wide stream of recent SEC 8-K material-event filings (M&A, executive changes, restatements).
GDELT topic timeline	`GET /api/intelligence/v1/get-gdelt-topic-timeline`	Tone and volume timeline for an intelligence topic.
Market-implication cards	`GET /api/intelligence/v1/list-market-implications`	AI-generated implication cards from live world state; documented here to avoid duplicating market-domain panel ownership.

Intelligence & Analysis

Map Layers

Finance

Source Intelligence, Context and Aggregation