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worldmonitor/README.md
Elie Habib cd1f8caae6 Update README with Tech Monitor docs, bump version to 1.7.0
- Add Platform Variants section documenting World/Tech Monitor
- Add Tech Monitor data layers (Tech HQs, Startup Hubs, Cloud Regions, etc.)
- Add Regional Tech HQ coverage table (Silicon Valley, MENA, Europe, Asia)
- Add Marker Clustering section explaining grouping logic
- Add completed features to Roadmap (Tech Monitor, clustering, Learning Mode)
- Update version badge from 1.5.1 to 1.7.0
- Replace Earthquake with Datacenter in tech variant map legend
2026-01-23 11:34:04 +04:00

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World Monitor

Real-time global intelligence dashboard aggregating news, markets, geopolitical data, and infrastructure monitoring into a unified situation awareness interface.

🌐 Live Demo: worldmonitor.app | 💻 Tech Variant: tech.worldmonitor.app

TypeScript Vite D3.js Version

World Monitor Dashboard

Platform Variants

World Monitor runs two specialized variants from a single codebase, each optimized for different monitoring needs:

Variant URL Focus
🌍 World Monitor worldmonitor.app Geopolitical intelligence, military tracking, conflict monitoring, infrastructure security
💻 Tech Monitor tech.worldmonitor.app Technology sector intelligence, AI/startup ecosystems, cloud infrastructure, tech events

A compact variant switcher in the header allows seamless navigation between variants while preserving your map position and panel configuration.

Tech Monitor Data Layers

The tech variant provides specialized layers for technology sector monitoring:

Tech Ecosystem

Layer Description
Tech HQs Headquarters of major tech companies (Big Tech, unicorns, public companies)
Startup Hubs Major startup ecosystems with ecosystem tier, funding data, and notable companies
Cloud Regions AWS, Azure, GCP data center regions with zone counts
Accelerators Y Combinator, Techstars, 500 Startups, and regional accelerator locations
Tech Events Upcoming conferences and tech events with countdown timers

Tech Infrastructure

Layer Description
AI Datacenters 111 major AI compute clusters (≥10,000 GPUs)
Undersea Cables Submarine fiber routes critical for cloud connectivity
Internet Outages Network disruptions affecting tech operations

Tech News Categories

  • Startups & VC - Funding rounds, acquisitions, startup news
  • Cybersecurity - Security vulnerabilities, breaches, threat intelligence
  • Cloud & Infrastructure - AWS, Azure, GCP announcements, outages
  • Hardware & Chips - Semiconductors, AI accelerators, manufacturing
  • Developer & Open Source - Languages, frameworks, open source projects
  • Tech Policy - Regulation, antitrust, digital governance

Regional Tech HQ Coverage

Tech Monitor includes detailed coverage of global tech hubs with verified company data:

Region Notable Companies
Silicon Valley Apple, Google, Meta, Nvidia, Intel, Cisco, Oracle, VMware
Seattle Microsoft, Amazon, Tableau, Expedia
New York Bloomberg, MongoDB, Datadog, Squarespace
London Revolut, Deliveroo, Darktrace, Monzo
Tel Aviv Wix, Check Point, Monday.com, Fiverr
Dubai/MENA Careem, Noon, Anghami, Property Finder, Kitopi
Riyadh Tabby, Presight.ai, Ninja, XPANCEO
Singapore Grab, Razer, Sea Limited
Berlin Zalando, Delivery Hero, N26, Celonis
Tokyo Sony, Toyota, SoftBank, Rakuten

Features

Interactive Global Map

  • Zoom & Pan - Smooth navigation with mouse/trackpad gestures
  • Regional Focus - 8 preset views for rapid navigation (Global, Americas, Europe, MENA, Asia, Latin America, Africa, Oceania)
  • Layer System - Toggle visibility of 20+ data layers organized by category
  • Time Filtering - Filter events by time range (1h, 6h, 24h, 48h, 7d)
  • Pinnable Map - Pin the map to the top while scrolling through panels, or let it scroll with the page
  • Smart Marker Clustering - Nearby markers group at low zoom, expand on zoom in

Marker Clustering

Dense regions with many data points use intelligent clustering to prevent visual clutter:

How It Works

  • Markers within a pixel radius (adaptive to zoom level) merge into cluster badges
  • Cluster badges show the count of grouped items
  • Clicking a cluster opens a popup listing all grouped items
  • Zooming in reduces cluster radius, eventually showing individual markers

Grouping Logic

  • Protests: Cluster within same country only (riots sorted first, high severity prioritized)
  • Tech HQs: Cluster within same city (Big Tech sorted before unicorns before public companies)
  • Tech Events: Cluster within same location (sorted by date, soonest first)

This prevents issues like Dubai and Riyadh companies appearing merged at global zoom, while still providing clean visualization at continental scales.

Data Layers

Layers are organized into logical groups for efficient monitoring:

Geopolitical

Layer Description
Conflicts Active conflict zones with involved parties and status
Hotspots Intelligence hotspots with activity levels based on news correlation
Sanctions Countries under economic sanctions regimes
Protests Live social unrest events from ACLED and GDELT

Military & Strategic

Layer Description
Military Bases 220+ global military installations from 9 operators
Nuclear Facilities Power plants, weapons labs, enrichment sites
Gamma Irradiators IAEA-tracked Category 1-3 radiation sources
APT Groups State-sponsored cyber threat actors with geographic attribution
Spaceports 12 major launch facilities (NASA, SpaceX, Roscosmos, CNSA, ESA, ISRO, JAXA)
Critical Minerals Strategic mineral deposits (lithium, cobalt, rare earths) with operator info

Infrastructure

Layer Description
Undersea Cables 55 major submarine cable routes worldwide
Pipelines 88 operating oil & gas pipelines across all continents
Internet Outages Network disruptions via Cloudflare Radar
AI Datacenters 111 major AI compute clusters (≥10,000 GPUs)

Transport

Layer Description
Ships (AIS) Live vessel tracking via AIS with chokepoint monitoring and 61 strategic ports*
Delays FAA airport delay status and ground stops

*AIS data via AISStream.io uses terrestrial receivers with stronger coverage in European/Atlantic waters. Middle East, Asia, and open ocean coverage is limited. Satellite AIS providers (Spire, Kpler) offer global coverage but require commercial licenses.

Natural Events

Layer Description
Natural USGS earthquakes (M4.5+) + NASA EONET events (storms, wildfires, volcanoes, floods)
Weather NWS severe weather warnings

Economic & Labels

Layer Description
Economic Tabbed economic panel with FRED indicators, EIA oil analytics, and USASpending.gov government contracts
Countries Country boundary labels
Waterways Strategic waterways and chokepoints

Intelligence Panels

Beyond raw data feeds, the dashboard provides synthesized intelligence panels:

Panel Purpose
Strategic Risk Overview Composite risk score combining all intelligence modules
Country Instability Index Real-time stability scores for 20 monitored countries
Infrastructure Cascade Dependency analysis for cables, pipelines, and chokepoints
Live Intelligence GDELT-powered topic feeds (Military, Cyber, Nuclear, Sanctions)
Intel Feed Curated defense and security news sources

These panels transform raw signals into actionable intelligence by applying scoring algorithms, trend detection, and cross-source correlation.

News Aggregation

Multi-source RSS aggregation across categories:

  • World / Geopolitical - BBC, Reuters, AP, Guardian, NPR, Politico, The Diplomat
  • Middle East / MENA - Al Jazeera, BBC ME, Guardian ME, Al Arabiya, Times of Israel
  • Africa - BBC Africa, News24, Google News aggregation (regional & Sahel coverage)
  • Latin America - BBC Latin America, Guardian Americas, Google News aggregation
  • Asia-Pacific - BBC Asia, South China Morning Post, Google News aggregation
  • Energy & Resources - Google News aggregation (oil/gas, nuclear, mining, Reuters Energy)
  • Technology - Hacker News, Ars Technica, The Verge, MIT Tech Review
  • AI / ML - ArXiv, VentureBeat AI, The Verge AI, MIT Tech Review
  • Finance - CNBC, MarketWatch, Financial Times, Yahoo Finance
  • Government - White House, State Dept, Pentagon, Treasury, Fed, SEC, UN News, CISA
  • Intel Feed - Defense One, Breaking Defense, Bellingcat, Krebs Security, Janes
  • Think Tanks - Foreign Policy, Atlantic Council, Foreign Affairs, CSIS, RAND, Brookings, Carnegie
  • Crisis Watch - International Crisis Group, IAEA, WHO, UNHCR
  • Regional Sources - Xinhua, TASS, Kyiv Independent, Moscow Times
  • Layoffs Tracker - Tech industry job cuts

Source Filtering

The 📡 SOURCES button in the header opens a global source management modal, enabling fine-grained control over which news sources appear in the dashboard.

Capabilities:

  • Search: Filter the source list by name to quickly find specific outlets
  • Individual Toggle: Click any source to enable/disable it
  • Bulk Actions: "Select All" and "Select None" for quick adjustments
  • Counter Display: Shows "45/77 enabled" to indicate current selection
  • Persistence: Settings are saved to localStorage and persist across sessions

Use Cases:

  • Noise Reduction: Disable high-volume aggregators (Google News) to focus on primary sources
  • Regional Focus: Enable only sources relevant to a specific geographic area
  • Source Quality: Disable sources with poor signal-to-noise ratio
  • Bias Management: Balance coverage by enabling/disabling sources with known editorial perspectives

Technical Details:

  • Disabled sources are filtered at fetch time (not display time), reducing bandwidth and API calls
  • Affects all news panels simultaneously—disable BBC once, it's gone everywhere
  • Panels with all sources disabled show "All sources disabled" message
  • Changes take effect on the next refresh cycle

Regional Intelligence Panels

Dedicated panels provide focused coverage for strategically significant regions:

Panel Coverage Key Topics
Middle East MENA region Israel-Gaza, Iran, Gulf states, Red Sea
Africa Sub-Saharan Africa Sahel instability, coups, insurgencies, resources
Latin America Central & South America Venezuela, drug trafficking, regional politics
Asia-Pacific East & Southeast Asia China-Taiwan, Korean peninsula, ASEAN
Energy & Resources Global Oil markets, nuclear, mining, energy security

Each panel aggregates region-specific sources to provide concentrated situational awareness for that theater. This enables focused monitoring when global events warrant attention to a particular region.

Live News Streams

Embedded YouTube live streams from major news networks with channel switching:

Channel Coverage
Bloomberg Business & financial news
Sky News UK & international news
Euronews European perspective
DW News German international broadcaster
France 24 French global news
Al Arabiya Middle East news (Arabic perspective)
Al Jazeera Middle East & international news

Core Features:

  • Channel Switcher - One-click switching between networks
  • Live Indicator - Blinking dot shows stream status, click to pause/play
  • Mute Toggle - Audio control (muted by default)
  • Double-Width Panel - Larger video player for better viewing

Performance Optimizations:

The live stream panel uses the YouTube IFrame Player API rather than raw iframe embedding. This provides several advantages:

Feature Benefit
Persistent player No iframe reload on mute/play/channel change
API control Direct playVideo(), pauseVideo(), mute() calls
Reduced bandwidth Same stream continues across state changes
Faster switching Channel changes via loadVideoById()

Idle Detection:

To conserve resources, the panel implements automatic idle pausing:

Trigger Action
Tab hidden Stream pauses (via Visibility API)
5 min idle Stream pauses (no mouse/keyboard activity)
User returns Stream resumes automatically
Manual pause User intent tracked separately

This prevents background tabs from consuming bandwidth while preserving user preference for manually-paused streams.

Market Data

  • Stocks - Major indices and tech stocks via Finnhub (Yahoo Finance backup)
  • Commodities - Oil, gold, natural gas, copper, VIX
  • Crypto - Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana via CoinGecko
  • Sector Heatmap - Visual sector performance (11 SPDR sectors)
  • Economic Indicators - Fed data via FRED (assets, rates, yields)
  • Oil Analytics - EIA data: WTI/Brent prices, US production, US inventory with weekly changes
  • Government Spending - USASpending.gov: Recent federal contracts and awards

Prediction Markets

  • Polymarket integration for event probability tracking
  • Correlation analysis with news events

Search (⌘K)

Universal search across all data sources:

  • News articles
  • Geographic hotspots and conflicts
  • Infrastructure (pipelines, cables, datacenters)
  • Nuclear facilities and irradiators
  • Markets and predictions

Data Export

  • CSV and JSON export of current dashboard state
  • Historical playback from snapshots

Signal Intelligence

The dashboard continuously analyzes data streams to detect significant patterns and anomalies. Signals appear in the header badge () with confidence scores.

Intelligence Findings Badge

The header displays an Intelligence Findings badge that consolidates two types of alerts:

Alert Type Source Examples
Correlation Signals Cross-source pattern detection Velocity spikes, market divergence, prediction leading
Unified Alerts Module-generated alerts CII spikes, geographic convergence, infrastructure cascades

Interaction: Clicking the badge—or clicking an individual alert—opens a detail modal showing:

  • Full alert description and context
  • Component breakdown (for composite alerts)
  • Affected countries or regions
  • Confidence score and priority level
  • Timestamp and trending direction

This provides a unified command center for all intelligence findings, whether generated by correlation analysis or module-specific threshold detection.

Signal Types

The system detects 12 distinct signal types across news, markets, military, and infrastructure domains:

News & Source Signals

Signal Trigger What It Means
◉ Convergence 3+ source types report same story within 30 minutes Multiple independent channels confirming the same event—higher likelihood of significance
△ Triangulation Wire + Government + Intel sources align The "authority triangle"—when official channels, wire services, and defense specialists all report the same thing
🔥 Velocity Spike Topic mention rate doubles with 6+ sources/hour A story is accelerating rapidly across the news ecosystem

Market Signals

Signal Trigger What It Means
🔮 Prediction Leading Prediction market moves 5%+ with low news coverage Markets pricing in information not yet reflected in news
📰 News Leads Markets High news velocity without corresponding market move Breaking news not yet priced in—potential mispricing
✓ Market Move Explained Market moves 2%+ with correlated news coverage Price action has identifiable news catalyst—entity correlation found related stories
📊 Silent Divergence Market moves 2%+ with no correlated news after entity search Unexplained price action after exhaustive search—possible insider knowledge or algorithm-driven
📈 Sector Cascade Multiple related sectors moving in same direction Market reaction cascading through correlated industries

Infrastructure & Energy Signals

Signal Trigger What It Means
🛢 Flow Drop Pipeline flow disruption keywords detected Physical commodity supply constraint—may precede price spike
🔁 Flow-Price Divergence Pipeline disruption news without corresponding oil price move Energy supply disruption not yet priced in—potential information edge

Geopolitical & Military Signals

Signal Trigger What It Means
🌍 Geographic Convergence 3+ event types in same 1°×1° grid cell Multiple independent data streams converging on same location—heightened regional activity
🔺 Hotspot Escalation Multi-component score exceeds threshold with rising trend Hotspot showing corroborated escalation across news, CII, convergence, and military data
✈ Military Surge Transport/fighter activity 2× baseline in theater Unusual military airlift concentration—potential deployment or crisis response

How It Works

The correlation engine maintains rolling snapshots of:

  • News topic frequency (by keyword extraction)
  • Market price changes
  • Prediction market probabilities

Each refresh cycle compares current state to previous snapshot, applying thresholds and deduplication to avoid alert fatigue. Signals include confidence scores (60-95%) based on the strength of the pattern.

Entity-Aware Correlation

The signal engine uses a knowledge base of 100+ entities to intelligently correlate market movements with news coverage. Rather than simple keyword matching, the system understands that "AVGO" (the ticker) relates to "Broadcom" (the company), "AI chips" (the sector), and entities like "Nvidia" (a competitor).

Entity Knowledge Base

Each entity in the registry contains:

Field Purpose Example
ID Canonical identifier broadcom
Name Display name Broadcom Inc.
Type Category company, commodity, crypto, country, person
Aliases Alternative names AVGO, Broadcom, Broadcom Inc
Keywords Related topics AI chips, semiconductors, VMware
Sector Industry classification semiconductors
Related Linked entities nvidia, intel, amd

Entity Types

Type Count Examples
Companies 50+ Nvidia, Apple, Tesla, Broadcom, Boeing, Lockheed Martin, TSMC, Rheinmetall
Indices 5+ S&P 500, Dow Jones, NASDAQ
Sectors 10+ Technology (XLK), Finance (XLF), Energy (XLE), Healthcare (XLV), Semiconductors (SMH)
Commodities 10+ Oil (WTI), Gold, Natural Gas, Copper, Silver, VIX
Crypto 3 Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana
Countries 15+ China, Russia, Iran, Israel, Ukraine, Taiwan, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Qatar, Turkey, Egypt

How Entity Matching Works

When a market moves significantly (≥2%), the system:

  1. Looks up the ticker in the entity registry (e.g., AVGObroadcom)
  2. Gathers all identifiers: aliases, keywords, sector peers, related entities
  3. Scans all news clusters for matches against any identifier
  4. Scores confidence based on match type:
    • Alias match (exact name): 95%
    • Keyword match (topic): 70%
    • Related entity match: 60%

If correlated news is found → "Market Move Explained" signal with the news headline. If no correlation after exhaustive search → "Silent Divergence" signal.

Example: Broadcom +2.5%

1. Ticker AVGO detected with +2.5% move
2. Entity lookup: broadcom
3. Search terms: ["Broadcom", "AVGO", "AI chips", "semiconductors", "VMware", "nvidia", "intel", "amd"]
4. News scan finds: "Broadcom AI Revenue Beats Estimates"
5. Result: "✓ Market Move Explained: Broadcom AI Revenue Beats Estimates"

Without this system, the same move would generate a generic "Silent Divergence: AVGO +2.5%" signal.

Sector Coverage

The entity registry spans strategically significant sectors:

Sector Examples Keywords Tracked
Technology Apple, Microsoft, Nvidia, Google, Meta, TSMC AI, cloud, chips, datacenter, streaming
Defense & Aerospace Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, Northrop Grumman, Boeing, Rheinmetall, Airbus F-35, missiles, drones, tanks, defense contracts
Semiconductors ASML, Samsung, AMD, Intel, Broadcom Lithography, EUV, foundry, fab, wafer
Critical Minerals Albemarle, SQM, MP Materials, Freeport-McMoRan Lithium, rare earth, cobalt, copper
Finance JPMorgan, Berkshire Hathaway, Visa, Mastercard Banking, credit, investment, interest rates
Healthcare Eli Lilly, Novo Nordisk, UnitedHealth, J&J Pharma, drugs, GLP-1, obesity, diabetes
Energy Exxon, Chevron, ConocoPhillips Oil, gas, drilling, refinery, LNG
Consumer Tesla, Walmart, Costco, Home Depot EV, retail, grocery, housing

This broad coverage enables correlation detection across diverse geopolitical and market events.

Signal Deduplication

To prevent alert fatigue, signals use type-specific TTL (time-to-live) values for deduplication:

Signal Type TTL Rationale
Silent Divergence 6 hours Market moves persist; don't re-alert on same stock
Flow-Price Divergence 6 hours Energy events unfold slowly
Explained Market Move 6 hours Same correlation shouldn't repeat
Prediction Leading 2 hours Prediction markets update more frequently
Other signals 30 minutes Default for fast-moving events

Market signals use symbol-only keys (e.g., silent_divergence:AVGO) rather than including the price change. This means a stock moving +2.5% then +3.0% won't trigger duplicate alerts—the first alert covers the story.


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, AFP, Bloomberg, White House, Pentagon Wire services and official government—fastest, most reliable
Tier 2 BBC, Guardian, NPR, 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, aggregators 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 (red) Direct state control or ownership
Medium ! Caution (orange) Significant state influence or funding
Low (none) Independent editorial control

Flagged Sources

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
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
  • Top sources list: Small badge next to each flagged source
  • Cluster view: Visible when expanding multi-source clusters

Why Include State Media?

State-controlled outlets are included rather than filtered because:

  1. Signal Value: What state media reports (and omits) reveals government priorities
  2. Rapid Response: State media often breaks domestic news faster than international outlets
  3. Narrative Analysis: Understanding how events are framed by different governments
  4. 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.


Entity Extraction System

The dashboard extracts named entities (companies, countries, leaders, organizations) from news headlines to enable news-to-market correlation and entity-based filtering.

How It Works

Headlines are scanned against a curated entity index containing:

Entity Type Examples Purpose
Companies Apple, Tesla, NVIDIA, Boeing Market symbol correlation
Countries Russia, China, Iran, Ukraine Geopolitical attribution
Leaders Putin, Xi Jinping, Khamenei Political event tracking
Organizations NATO, OPEC, Fed, SEC Institutional news filtering
Commodities Oil, Gold, Bitcoin Commodity news correlation

Entity Matching

Each entity has multiple match patterns for comprehensive detection:

Entity: NVIDIA (NVDA)
  Aliases: nvidia, nvda, jensen huang
  Keywords: gpu, h100, a100, cuda, ai chip
  Match Types:
    - Name match: "NVIDIA announces..." → 95% confidence
    - Alias match: "Jensen Huang says..." → 90% confidence
    - Keyword match: "H100 shortage..." → 70% confidence

Confidence Scoring

Entity extraction produces confidence scores based on match quality:

Match Type Confidence Example
Direct name 95% "Apple reports earnings"
Alias 90% "Tim Cook announces..."
Keyword 70% "iPhone sales decline"
Related cluster 63% Secondary headline mention (90% × 0.7)

Market Correlation

When a market symbol moves significantly, the system searches news clusters for related entities:

  1. Symbol lookup - Find entity by market symbol (e.g., AAPL → Apple)
  2. News search - Find clusters mentioning the entity or related entities
  3. Confidence ranking - Sort by extraction confidence
  4. Result - "Market Move Explained" or "Silent Divergence" signal

This enables signals like:

  • Explained: "AVGO +5.2% — Broadcom mentioned in 3 news clusters (AI chip demand)"
  • Silent: "AVGO +5.2% — No correlated news after entity search"

Signal Context ("Why It Matters")

Every signal includes contextual information explaining its analytical significance:

Context Fields

Field Purpose Example
Why It Matters Analytical significance "Markets pricing in information before news"
Actionable Insight What to do next "Monitor for breaking news in 1-6 hours"
Confidence Note Signal reliability caveats "Higher confidence if multiple markets align"

Signal-Specific Context

Signal Why It Matters
Prediction Leading Prediction markets often price in information before it becomes news—traders may have early access to developments
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.


Algorithms & Design

News Clustering

Related articles are grouped using Jaccard similarity on tokenized headlines:

similarity(A, B) = |A ∩ B| / |A  B|

Tokenization:

  • Headlines are lowercased and split on word boundaries
  • Stop words removed: "the", "a", "an", "in", "on", "at", "to", "for", "of", "and", "or"
  • Short tokens (<3 characters) filtered out
  • Result cached per headline for performance

Inverted Index Optimization: Rather than O(n²) pairwise comparison, the algorithm uses an inverted index:

  1. Build token → article indices map
  2. For each article, find candidate matches via shared tokens
  3. Only compute Jaccard for candidates with token overlap
  4. This reduces comparisons from ~10,000 to ~500 for typical news loads

Clustering Rules:

  • Articles with similarity ≥ 0.5 are grouped into clusters
  • Clusters are sorted by source tier, then recency
  • The most authoritative source becomes the "primary" headline
  • Clusters maintain full item list for multi-source attribution

Velocity Analysis

Each news cluster tracks publication velocity:

  • Sources per hour = article count / time span
  • Trend = rising/stable/falling based on first-half vs second-half publication rate
  • Levels: Normal (<3/hr), Elevated (3-6/hr), Spike (>6/hr)

Sentiment Detection

Headlines are scored against curated word lists:

Negative indicators: war, attack, killed, crisis, crash, collapse, threat, sanctions, invasion, missile, terror, assassination, recession, layoffs...

Positive indicators: peace, deal, agreement, breakthrough, recovery, growth, ceasefire, treaty, alliance, victory...

Score determines sentiment classification: negative (<-1), neutral (-1 to +1), positive (>+1)

Entity Extraction

News headlines are scanned against the entity knowledge base using word-boundary regex matching:

regex = /\b{escaped_alias}\b/gi

Index Structure: The entity index pre-builds five lookup maps for O(1) access:

Map Key Value Purpose
byId Entity ID Full entity record Direct lookup
byAlias Lowercase alias Entity ID Name matching
byKeyword Lowercase keyword Set of entity IDs Topic matching
bySector Sector name Set of entity IDs Sector queries
byType Entity type Set of entity IDs Type filtering

Matching Algorithm:

  1. Alias matching (highest confidence):

    • Iterate all aliases (minimum 3 characters to avoid false positives)
    • Word-boundary regex prevents partial matches ("AI" won't match "RAID")
    • First alias match for each entity stops further searching (deduplication)
  2. Keyword matching (medium confidence):

    • Simple substring check (faster than regex)
    • Multiple entities may match same keyword
    • Lower confidence (70%) than alias matches (95%)
  3. Related entity expansion:

    • If entity has related field, those entities are also checked
    • Example: AVGO move also searches for NVDA, INTC, AMD news

Performance:

  • Index builds once on first access (cached singleton)
  • Alias map has ~300 entries for 100+ entities
  • Keyword map has ~400 entries
  • Full news scan: O(aliases × clusters) ≈ 300 × 50 = 15,000 comparisons

Baseline Deviation (Z-Score)

The system maintains rolling baselines for news volume per topic:

  • 7-day average and 30-day average stored in IndexedDB
  • Standard deviation calculated from historical counts
  • Z-score = (current - mean) / stddev

Deviation levels:

  • Spike: Z > 2.5 (statistically rare increase)
  • Elevated: Z > 1.5
  • Normal: -2 < Z < 1.5
  • Quiet: Z < -2 (unusually low activity)

This enables detection of anomalous activity even when absolute numbers seem normal.


Dynamic Hotspot Activity

Hotspots on the map are not static threat levels. Activity is calculated in real-time based on news correlation.

Each hotspot defines keywords:

{
  id: 'dc',
  name: 'DC',
  keywords: ['pentagon', 'white house', 'congress', 'cia', 'nsa', ...],
  agencies: ['Pentagon', 'CIA', 'NSA', 'State Dept'],
}

The system counts matching news articles in the current feed, applies velocity analysis, and assigns activity levels:

Level Criteria Visual
Low <3 matches, normal velocity Gray marker
Elevated 3-6 matches OR elevated velocity Yellow pulse
High >6 matches OR spike velocity Red pulse

This creates a dynamic "heat map" of global attention based on live news flow.

Hotspot Escalation Signals

Beyond visual activity levels, the system generates escalation signals when hotspots show significant changes across multiple dimensions. This multi-component approach reduces false positives by requiring corroboration from independent data streams.

Escalation Components

Each hotspot's escalation score blends four weighted components:

Component Weight Data Source What It Measures
News Activity 35% RSS feeds Matching news count, breaking flags, velocity
CII Contribution 25% Country Instability Index Instability score of associated country
Geographic Convergence 25% Multi-source events Event type diversity in geographic cell
Military Activity 15% OpenSky/AIS Flights and vessels within 200km

Score Calculation

static_baseline = hotspot.baselineRisk  // 1-5 per hotspot
dynamic_score = (
  news_component × 0.35 +
  cii_component × 0.25 +
  geo_component × 0.25 +
  military_component × 0.15
)
proximity_boost = hotspot_proximity_multiplier  // 1.0-2.0

final_score = (static_baseline × 0.30 + dynamic_score × 0.70) × proximity_boost

Trend Detection

The system maintains 48-point history (24 hours at 30-minute intervals) per hotspot:

  • Linear regression calculates slope of recent scores
  • Rising: Slope > +0.1 points per interval
  • Falling: Slope < -0.1 points per interval
  • Stable: Slope within ±0.1

Signal Generation

Escalation signals (hotspot_escalation) are emitted when:

  1. Final score exceeds threshold (typically 60)
  2. At least 2 hours since last signal for this hotspot (cooldown)
  3. Trend is rising or score is critical (>80)

Signal Context

Field Content
Why It Matters "Geopolitical hotspot showing significant escalation based on news activity, country instability, geographic convergence, and military presence"
Actionable Insight "Increase monitoring priority; assess downstream impacts on infrastructure, markets, and regional stability"
Confidence Note "Weighted by multiple data sources—news (35%), CII (25%), geo-convergence (25%), military (15%)"

This multi-signal approach means a hotspot escalation signal represents corroborated evidence across independent data streams—not just a spike in news mentions.


Regional Focus Navigation

The FOCUS selector in the header provides instant navigation to strategic regions. Each preset is calibrated to center on the region's geographic area with an appropriate zoom level.

Available Regions

Region Coverage Primary Use Cases
Global Full world view Overview, cross-regional comparison
Americas North America focus US monitoring, NORAD activity
Europe EU + UK + Scandinavia + Western Russia NATO activity, energy infrastructure
MENA Middle East + North Africa Conflict zones, oil infrastructure
Asia East Asia + Southeast Asia China-Taiwan, Korean peninsula
Latin America Central + South America Regional instability, drug trafficking
Africa Sub-Saharan Africa Conflict zones, resource extraction
Oceania Australia + Pacific Indo-Pacific activity

Quick Navigation

The FOCUS dropdown enables rapid context switching:

  1. Breaking news - Jump to the affected region
  2. Regional briefing - Cycle through regions for situational awareness
  3. Crisis monitoring - Lock onto a specific theater

Regional views are encoded in shareable URLs, enabling direct links to specific geographic contexts.


Map Pinning

By default, the map scrolls with the page, allowing you to scroll down to view panels below. The pin button (📌) in the map header toggles sticky behavior:

State Behavior
Unpinned (default) Map scrolls with page; scroll down to see panels
Pinned Map stays fixed at top; panels scroll beneath

When to Pin

  • Active monitoring - Keep the map visible while reading news panels
  • Cross-referencing - Compare map markers with panel data
  • Presentation - Show the map while discussing panel content

When to Unpin

  • Panel focus - Read through panels without map taking screen space
  • Mobile - Pin is disabled on mobile for better space utilization
  • Research - Focus on data panels without geographic distraction

Pin state persists across sessions via localStorage.


Country Instability Index (CII)

The dashboard maintains a real-time instability score for 20 strategically significant countries. Rather than relying on static risk ratings, the CII dynamically reflects current conditions based on multiple input streams.

Monitored Countries (Tier 1)

Region Countries
Americas United States, Venezuela
Europe Germany, France, United Kingdom, Poland
Eastern Europe Russia, Ukraine
Middle East Iran, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Syria, Yemen
Asia-Pacific China, Taiwan, North Korea, India, Pakistan, Myanmar

Three Component Scores

Each country's CII is computed from three weighted components:

Component Weight Data Sources What It Measures
Unrest 40% ACLED protests, GDELT events Civil unrest intensity, fatalities, event severity
Security 30% Military flights, naval vessels Unusual military activity patterns
Information 30% News velocity, alert clusters Media attention intensity and acceleration

Scoring Algorithm

Unrest Score:
  base = min(50, protest_count × 8)
  fatality_boost = min(30, total_fatalities × 5)
  severity_boost = min(20, high_severity_count × 10)
  unrest = min(100, base + fatality_boost + severity_boost)

Security Score:
  flight_score = min(50, military_flights × 3)
  vessel_score = min(30, naval_vessels × 5)
  security = min(100, flight_score + vessel_score)

Information Score:
  base = min(40, news_count × 5)
  velocity_boost = min(40, avg_velocity × 10)
  alert_boost = 20 if any_alert else 0
  information = min(100, base + velocity_boost + alert_boost)

Final CII = round(unrest × 0.4 + security × 0.3 + information × 0.3)

Scoring Bias Prevention

Raw news volume creates a natural bias—English-language media generates far more coverage of the US, UK, and Western Europe than conflict zones. Without correction, stable democracies would consistently score higher than actual crisis regions.

Log Scaling for High-Volume Countries

Countries with high media coverage receive logarithmic dampening on their unrest and information scores:

if (newsVolume > threshold):
  dampingFactor = 1 / (1 + log10(newsVolume / threshold))
  score = rawScore × dampingFactor

This ensures the US receiving 50 news mentions about routine political activity doesn't outscore Ukraine with 10 mentions about active combat.

Conflict Zone Floor Scores

Active conflict zones have minimum score floors that prevent them from appearing stable during data gaps or low-coverage periods:

Country Floor Rationale
Ukraine 55 Active war with Russia
Syria 50 Ongoing civil war
Yemen 50 Ongoing civil war
Myanmar 45 Military coup, civil conflict
Israel 45 Active Gaza conflict

The floor applies after the standard calculation—if the computed score exceeds the floor, the computed score is used. This prevents false "all clear" signals while preserving sensitivity to actual escalations.

Instability Levels

Level Score Range Visual Meaning
Critical 81-100 Red Active crisis or major escalation
High 66-80 Orange Significant instability requiring close monitoring
Elevated 51-65 Yellow Above-normal activity patterns
Normal 31-50 Gray Baseline geopolitical activity
Low 0-30 Green Unusually quiet period

Trend Detection

The CII tracks 24-hour changes to identify trajectory:

  • Rising: Score increased by ≥5 points (escalating situation)
  • Stable: Change within ±5 points (steady state)
  • Falling: Score decreased by ≥5 points (de-escalation)

Learning Mode (15-Minute Warmup)

On dashboard startup, the CII system enters Learning Mode—a 15-minute calibration period where scores are calculated but alerts are suppressed. This prevents the flood of false-positive alerts that would otherwise occur as the system establishes baseline values.

Why 15 minutes? Real-world testing showed that CII scores stabilize after approximately 10-20 minutes of data collection. The 15-minute window provides sufficient time for:

  • Multiple refresh cycles across all data sources
  • Trend detection to establish direction (rising/stable/falling)
  • Cross-source correlation to normalize bias

Visual Indicators

During Learning Mode, the dashboard provides clear visual feedback:

Location Indicator
CII Panel Yellow banner with progress bar and countdown timer
Strategic Risk Overview "Learning Mode - Xm until reliable" status
Score Display Scores shown at 60% opacity (dimmed)

Behavior

Minutes 0-15: Learning Mode Active
  - CII scores calculated and displayed (dimmed)
  - Trend detection active (stores baseline)
  - All CII-related alerts suppressed
  - Progress bar fills as time elapses

After 15 minutes: Learning Complete
  - Full opacity scores
  - Alert generation enabled (threshold ≥10 point change)
  - "All data sources active" status shown

This ensures users understand that early scores are provisional while preventing alert fatigue during the calibration period.

Keyword Attribution

Countries are matched to data via keyword lists:

  • Russia: russia, moscow, kremlin, putin
  • China: china, beijing, xi jinping, prc
  • Taiwan: taiwan, taipei

This enables attribution of news and events to specific countries even when formal country codes aren't present in the source data.


Geographic Convergence Detection

One of the most valuable intelligence signals is when multiple independent data streams converge on the same geographic area. This often precedes significant events.

How It Works

The system maintains a real-time grid of geographic cells (1° × 1° resolution). Each cell tracks four event types:

Event Type Source Detection Method
Protests ACLED/GDELT Direct geolocation
Military Flights OpenSky ADS-B position
Naval Vessels AIS stream Ship position
Earthquakes USGS Epicenter location

When 3 or more different event types occur within the same cell during a 24-hour window, a convergence alert is generated.

Convergence Scoring

type_score = event_types × 25      # Max 100 (4 types)
count_boost = min(25, total_events × 2)
convergence_score = min(100, type_score + count_boost)

Alert Thresholds

Types Converging Score Range Alert Level
4 types 80-100 Critical
3 types 60-80 High
3 types (low count) 40-60 Medium

Example Scenarios

Taiwan Strait Buildup

  • Cell: 25°N, 121°E
  • Events: Military flights (3), Naval vessels (2), Protests (1)
  • Score: 75 + 12 = 87 (Critical)
  • Signal: "Geographic Convergence (3 types) - military flights, naval vessels, protests"

Middle East Flashpoint

  • Cell: 32°N, 35°E
  • Events: Military flights (5), Protests (8), Earthquake (1)
  • Score: 75 + 25 = 100 (Critical)
  • Signal: Multiple activity streams converging on region

Why This Matters

Individual data points are often noise. But when protests break out, military assets reposition, and seismic monitors detect anomalies in the same location simultaneously, it warrants attention—regardless of whether any single source is reporting a crisis.


Infrastructure Cascade Analysis

Critical infrastructure is interdependent. A cable cut doesn't just affect connectivity—it creates cascading effects across dependent countries and systems. The cascade analysis system visualizes these dependencies.

Dependency Graph

The system builds a graph of 279 infrastructure nodes and 280 dependency edges:

Node Type Count Examples
Undersea Cables 18 MAREA, FLAG Europe-Asia, SEA-ME-WE 6
Pipelines 88 Nord Stream, Trans-Siberian, Keystone
Ports 61 Singapore, Rotterdam, Shenzhen
Chokepoints 8 Suez, Hormuz, Malacca
Countries 105 End nodes representing national impact

Cascade Calculation

When a user selects an infrastructure asset for analysis, a breadth-first cascade propagates through the graph:

1. Start at source node (e.g., "cable:marea")
2. For each dependent node:
   impact = edge_strength × disruption_level × (1 - redundancy)
3. Categorize impact:
   - Critical: impact > 0.8
   - High: impact > 0.5
   - Medium: impact > 0.2
   - Low: impact ≤ 0.2
4. Recurse to depth 3 (prevent infinite loops)

Redundancy Modeling

The system accounts for alternative routes:

  • Cables with high redundancy show reduced impact
  • Countries with multiple cable landings show lower vulnerability
  • Alternative routes are displayed with capacity percentages

Example Analysis

MAREA Cable Disruption:

Source: MAREA (US ↔ Spain, 200 Tbps)
Countries Affected: 4
- Spain: Medium (redundancy via other Atlantic cables)
- Portugal: Low (secondary landing)
- France: Low (alternative routes via UK)
- US: Low (high redundancy)
Alternative Routes: TAT-14 (35%), Hibernia (22%), AEConnect (18%)

FLAG Europe-Asia Disruption:

Source: FLAG Europe-Asia (UK ↔ Japan)
Countries Affected: 7
- India: Medium (major capacity share)
- UAE, Saudi Arabia: Medium (limited alternatives)
- UK, Japan: Low (high redundancy)
Alternative Routes: SEA-ME-WE 6 (11%), 2Africa (8%), Falcon (8%)

Use Cases

  • Pre-positioning: Understand which countries are most vulnerable to specific infrastructure failures
  • Risk Assessment: Evaluate supply chain exposure to chokepoint disruptions
  • Incident Response: Quickly identify downstream effects of reported cable cuts or pipeline damage

Undersea Cable Activity Monitoring

The dashboard monitors real-time cable operations and advisories from official maritime warning systems, providing early warning of potential connectivity disruptions.

Data Sources

Source Coverage Data Type
NGA Warnings Global NAVAREA maritime warnings
Cable Operators Route-specific Maintenance advisories

How It Works

The system parses NGA (National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency) maritime warnings for cable-related activity:

  1. Keyword filtering: Warnings containing "CABLE", "CABLESHIP", "SUBMARINE CABLE", "FIBER OPTIC" are extracted
  2. Coordinate parsing: DMS and decimal coordinates are extracted from warning text
  3. Cable matching: Coordinates are matched to nearest cable routes within 5° radius
  4. Severity classification: Keywords like "FAULT", "BREAK", "DAMAGE" indicate faults; others indicate maintenance

Alert Types

Type Trigger Map Display
Cable Advisory Any cable-related NAVAREA warning ⚠ Yellow marker at location
Repair Ship Cableship name detected in warning 🚢 Ship icon with status

Repair Ship Tracking

When a cableship is mentioned in warnings, the system extracts:

  • Vessel name: CS Reliance, Cable Innovator, etc.
  • Status: "En route" or "On station"
  • Location: Current working area
  • Associated cable: Nearest cable route

This enables monitoring of ongoing repair operations before official carrier announcements.

Why This Matters

Undersea cables carry 95% of intercontinental data traffic. A cable cut can:

  • Cause regional internet outages
  • Disrupt financial transactions
  • Impact military communications
  • Create economic cascading effects

Early visibility into cable operations—even maintenance windows—provides advance warning for contingency planning.


Strategic Risk Overview

The Strategic Risk Overview provides a composite dashboard that synthesizes all intelligence modules into a single risk assessment.

Composite Score (0-100)

The strategic risk score combines three components:

Component Weight Calculation
Convergence 40% min(100, convergence_zones × 20)
CII Deviation 35% min(100, avg_deviation × 2)
Infrastructure 25% min(100, incidents × 25)

Risk Levels

Score Level Trend Icon Meaning
70-100 Critical 📈 Escalating Multiple converging crises
50-69 Elevated ➡️ Stable Heightened global tension
30-49 Moderate ➡️ Stable Normal fluctuation
0-29 Low 📉 De-escalating Unusually quiet period

Unified Alert System

Alerts from all modules are merged using temporal and spatial deduplication:

  • Time window: Alerts within 2 hours may be merged
  • Distance threshold: Alerts within 200km may be merged
  • Same country: Alerts affecting the same country may be merged

When alerts merge, they become composite alerts that show the full picture:

Type: Composite Alert
Title: Convergence + CII + Infrastructure: Ukraine
Components:
  - Geographic Convergence: 4 event types in Kyiv region
  - CII Spike: Ukraine +15 points (Critical)
  - Infrastructure: Black Sea cables at risk
Priority: Critical

Alert Priority

Priority Criteria
Critical CII critical level, convergence score ≥80, cascade critical impact
High CII high level, convergence score ≥60, cascade affecting ≥5 countries
Medium CII change ≥10 points, convergence score ≥40
Low Minor changes and low-impact events

Trend Detection

The system tracks the composite score over time:

  • First measurement establishes baseline (shows "Stable")
  • Subsequent changes of ±5 points trigger trend changes
  • This prevents false "escalating" signals on initialization

Pentagon Pizza Index (PizzINT)

The dashboard integrates real-time foot traffic data from strategic locations near government and military facilities. This "Pizza Index" concept—tracking late-night activity spikes at restaurants near the Pentagon, Langley, and other facilities—provides an unconventional indicator of crisis activity.

How It Works

The system aggregates percentage-of-usual metrics from monitored locations:

  1. Locations: Fast food, pizza shops, and convenience stores near Pentagon, CIA, NSA, State Dept, and other facilities
  2. Aggregation: Activity percentages are averaged, capped at 100%
  3. Spike Detection: Locations exceeding their baseline are flagged

DEFCON-Style Alerting

Aggregate activity maps to a 5-level readiness scale:

Level Threshold Label Meaning
DEFCON 1 ≥90% COCKED PISTOL Maximum readiness; crisis response active
DEFCON 2 ≥75% FAST PACE High activity; significant event underway
DEFCON 3 ≥50% ROUND HOUSE Elevated; above-normal operations
DEFCON 4 ≥25% DOUBLE TAKE Increased vigilance
DEFCON 5 <25% FADE OUT Normal peacetime operations

GDELT Tension Pairs

The indicator also displays geopolitical tension scores from GDELT (Global Database of Events, Language, and Tone):

Pair Monitored Relationship
USA ↔ Russia Primary nuclear peer adversary
USA ↔ China Economic and military competition
USA ↔ Iran Middle East regional tensions
Israel ↔ Iran Direct conflict potential
China ↔ Taiwan Cross-strait relations
Russia ↔ Ukraine Active conflict zone

Each pair shows:

  • Current tension score (GDELT's normalized metric)
  • 7-day trend (rising, falling, stable)
  • Percentage change from previous period

This provides context for the activity levels—a spike at Pentagon locations during a rising China-Taiwan tension score carries different weight than during a quiet period.


News clusters are automatically enriched with nearby critical infrastructure. When a story mentions a geographic region, the system identifies relevant assets within 600km, providing immediate operational context.

Asset Types

Type Source Examples
Pipelines 88 global routes Nord Stream, Keystone, Trans-Siberian
Undersea Cables 55 major cables TAT-14, SEA-ME-WE, Pacific Crossing
AI Datacenters 111 clusters (≥10k GPUs) Azure East US, GCP Council Bluffs
Military Bases 220+ installations Ramstein, Diego Garcia, Guam
Nuclear Facilities 100+ sites Power plants, weapons labs, enrichment

Location Inference

The system infers the geographic focus of news stories through:

  1. Keyword matching: Headlines are scanned against hotspot keyword lists (e.g., "Taiwan" → Taiwan Strait hotspot)
  2. Confidence scoring: Multiple keyword matches increase location confidence
  3. Fallback to conflicts: If no hotspot matches, active conflict zones are checked

Distance Calculation

Assets are ranked by Haversine distance from the inferred location:

d = 2r × arcsin(√(sin²(Δφ/2) + cos(φ₁) × cos(φ₂) × sin²(Δλ/2)))

Up to 3 assets per type are displayed, sorted by proximity.

Example Context

A news cluster about "pipeline explosion in Germany" would show:

  • Pipelines: Nord Stream (23km), Yamal-Europe (156km)
  • Cables: TAT-14 landing (89km)
  • Bases: Ramstein (234km)

Clicking an asset zooms the map to its location and displays detailed information.


Custom Monitors

Create personalized keyword alerts that scan all incoming news:

  1. Enter comma-separated keywords (e.g., "nvidia, gpu, chip shortage")
  2. System assigns a unique color
  3. Matching articles are highlighted in the Monitor panel
  4. Matching articles in clusters inherit the monitor color

Monitors persist across sessions via LocalStorage.


Activity Tracking

The dashboard highlights newly-arrived items so you can quickly identify what changed since your last look.

Visual Indicators

Indicator Duration Purpose
NEW tag 2 minutes Badge on items that just appeared
Glow highlight 30 seconds Subtle animation drawing attention
Panel badge Until viewed Count of new items in collapsed panels

Automatic "Seen" Detection

The system uses IntersectionObserver to detect when panels become visible:

  • When a panel is >50% visible for >500ms, items are marked as "seen"
  • Scrolling through a panel marks visible items progressively
  • Switching panels resets the "new" state appropriately

Panel-Specific Tracking

Each panel maintains independent activity state:

  • News: New clusters since last view
  • Markets: Price changes exceeding thresholds
  • Predictions: Probability shifts >5%
  • Natural Events: New earthquakes and EONET events

This enables focused monitoring—you can collapse panels you've reviewed and see at a glance which have new activity.


Snapshot System

The dashboard captures periodic snapshots for historical analysis:

  • Automatic capture every refresh cycle
  • 7-day retention with automatic cleanup
  • Stored data: news clusters, market prices, prediction values, hotspot levels
  • Playback: Load historical snapshots to see past dashboard states

Baselines (7-day and 30-day averages) are stored in IndexedDB for deviation analysis.


Maritime Intelligence

The Ships layer provides real-time vessel tracking and maritime domain awareness through AIS (Automatic Identification System) data.

Chokepoint Monitoring

The system monitors eight critical maritime chokepoints where disruptions could impact global trade:

Chokepoint Strategic Importance
Strait of Hormuz 20% of global oil transits; Iran control
Suez Canal Europe-Asia shipping; single point of failure
Strait of Malacca Primary Asia-Pacific oil route
Bab el-Mandeb Red Sea access; Yemen/Houthi activity
Panama Canal Americas east-west transit
Taiwan Strait Semiconductor supply chain; PLA activity
South China Sea Contested waters; island disputes
Black Sea Ukraine grain exports; Russian naval activity

Density Analysis

Vessel positions are aggregated into a 2° grid to calculate traffic density. Each cell tracks:

  • Current vessel count
  • Historical baseline (30-minute rolling window)
  • Change percentage from baseline

Density changes of ±30% trigger alerts, indicating potential congestion, diversions, or blockades.

Dark Ship Detection

The system monitors for AIS gaps—vessels that stop transmitting their position. An AIS gap exceeding 60 minutes in monitored regions may indicate:

  • Sanctions evasion (ship-to-ship transfers)
  • Illegal fishing
  • Military activity
  • Equipment failure

Vessels reappearing after gaps are flagged for the duration of the session.

WebSocket Architecture

AIS data flows through a WebSocket relay for real-time updates without polling:

AISStream → WebSocket Relay → Browser
              (ws://relay)

The connection automatically reconnects on disconnection with a 30-second backoff. When the Ships layer is disabled, the WebSocket disconnects to conserve resources.

Railway Relay Architecture

Some APIs block requests from cloud providers (Vercel, AWS, Cloudflare Workers). A Railway relay server provides authenticated access:

Browser → Railway Relay → External APIs
           (Node.js)      (AIS, OpenSky, RSS)

Relay Functions:

Endpoint Purpose Authentication
/ (WebSocket) AIS vessel stream AISStream API key
/opensky Military aircraft OAuth2 Bearer token
/rss Blocked RSS feeds None (user-agent spoofing)
/health Status check None

Environment Variables (Railway):

  • AISSTREAM_API_KEY - AIS data access
  • OPENSKY_CLIENT_ID - OAuth2 client ID
  • OPENSKY_CLIENT_SECRET - OAuth2 client secret

Why Railway?

  • Residential IP ranges (not blocked like cloud providers)
  • WebSocket support for persistent connections
  • Global edge deployment for low latency
  • Free tier sufficient for moderate traffic

The relay is stateless—it simply authenticates and proxies requests. All caching and processing happens client-side or in Vercel Edge Functions.


Military Tracking

The Military layer provides specialized tracking of military vessels and aircraft, identifying assets by their transponder characteristics and monitoring activity patterns.

Military Vessel Identification

Vessels are identified as military through multiple methods:

MMSI Analysis: Maritime Mobile Service Identity numbers encode the vessel's flag state. The system maintains a mapping of 150+ country codes to identify naval vessels:

MID Range Country Notes
338-339 USA US Navy, Coast Guard
273 Russia Russian Navy
412-414 China PLAN vessels
232-235 UK Royal Navy
226-228 France Marine Nationale

Callsign Patterns: Known military callsign prefixes (NAVY, GUARD, etc.) provide secondary identification.

Naval Chokepoint Monitoring

The system monitors 12 critical maritime chokepoints with configurable detection radii:

Chokepoint Strategic Significance
Strait of Hormuz Persian Gulf access, oil transit
Suez Canal Mediterranean-Red Sea link
Strait of Malacca Pacific-Indian Ocean route
Taiwan Strait Cross-strait tensions
Bosphorus Black Sea access
GIUK Gap North Atlantic submarine route

When military vessels enter these zones, proximity alerts are generated.

Naval Base Proximity

Activity near 12 major naval installations is tracked:

  • Norfolk (USA) - Atlantic Fleet headquarters
  • Pearl Harbor (USA) - Pacific Fleet base
  • Sevastopol (Russia) - Black Sea Fleet
  • Qingdao (China) - North Sea Fleet
  • Yokosuka (Japan) - US 7th Fleet

Vessels within 50km of these bases are flagged, enabling detection of unusual activity patterns.

Aircraft Tracking (OpenSky)

Military aircraft are tracked via the OpenSky Network using ADS-B data. OpenSky blocks unauthenticated requests from cloud provider IPs (Vercel, Railway, AWS), so aircraft tracking requires a relay server with credentials.

Authentication:

  • Register for a free account at opensky-network.org
  • Create an API client in account settings to get OPENSKY_CLIENT_ID and OPENSKY_CLIENT_SECRET
  • The relay uses OAuth2 client credentials flow to obtain Bearer tokens
  • Tokens are cached (30-minute expiry) and automatically refreshed

Identification Methods:

  • Callsign matching: Known military callsign patterns (RCH, REACH, DUKE, etc.)
  • ICAO hex ranges: Military aircraft use assigned hex code blocks by country
  • Altitude/speed profiles: Unusual flight characteristics

Tracked Metrics:

  • Position history (20-point trails over 5-minute windows)
  • Altitude and ground speed
  • Heading and track

Activity Detection:

  • Formations (multiple military aircraft in proximity)
  • Unusual patterns (holding, reconnaissance orbits)
  • Chokepoint transits

Vessel Position History

The system maintains position trails for tracked vessels:

  • 30-point history per MMSI
  • 10-minute cleanup interval for stale data
  • Trail visualization on map for recent movement

This enables detection of loitering, circling, or other anomalous behavior patterns.

Military Surge Detection

The system continuously monitors military aircraft activity to detect surge events—significant increases above normal operational baselines that may indicate mobilization, exercises, or crisis response.

Theater Classification

Military activity is analyzed across five geographic theaters:

Theater Coverage Key Areas
Middle East Persian Gulf, Levant, Arabian Peninsula US CENTCOM activity, Iranian airspace
Eastern Europe Ukraine, Baltics, Black Sea NATO-Russia border activity
Western Europe Central Europe, North Sea NATO exercises, air policing
Pacific East Asia, Southeast Asia Taiwan Strait, Korean Peninsula
Horn of Africa Red Sea, East Africa Counter-piracy, Houthi activity

Aircraft Classification

Aircraft are categorized by callsign pattern matching:

Type Callsign Patterns Significance
Transport RCH, REACH, MOOSE, HERKY, EVAC, DUSTOFF Airlift operations, troop movement
Fighter VIPER, EAGLE, RAPTOR, STRIKE Combat air patrol, interception
Reconnaissance SIGNT, COBRA, RIVET, JSTARS Intelligence gathering

Baseline Calculation

The system maintains rolling 48-hour activity baselines per theater:

  • Minimum 6 data samples required for reliable baseline
  • Default baselines when data insufficient: 3 transport, 2 fighter, 1 reconnaissance
  • Activity below 50% of baseline indicates stand-down

Surge Detection Algorithm

surge_ratio = current_count / baseline
surge_triggered = (
  ratio ≥ 2.0 AND
  transport ≥ 5 AND
  fighters ≥ 4
)

Surge Signal Output

When a surge is detected, the system generates a military_surge signal:

Field Content
Location Theater centroid coordinates
Message "Military Transport Surge in [Theater]: [X] aircraft (baseline: [Y])"
Details Aircraft types, nearby bases (150km radius), top callsigns
Confidence Based on surge ratio (0.60.9)

Foreign Military Presence Detection

Beyond surge detection, the system monitors for foreign military aircraft in sensitive regions—situations where aircraft from one nation appear in geopolitically significant areas outside their normal operating range.

Sensitive Regions

The system tracks 18 strategically significant geographic areas:

Region Sensitivity Monitored For
Taiwan Strait Critical PLAAF activity, US transits
Persian Gulf Critical Iranian, US, Gulf state activity
Baltic Sea High Russian activity near NATO
Black Sea High NATO reconnaissance, Russian activity
South China Sea High PLAAF patrols, US FONOPs
Korean Peninsula High DPRK activity, US-ROK exercises
Eastern Mediterranean Medium Russian naval aviation, NATO
Arctic Medium Russian bomber patrols

Detection Logic

For each sensitive region, the system:

  1. Identifies all military aircraft within the region boundary
  2. Groups aircraft by operating nation
  3. Excludes "home region" operators (e.g., Russian VKS in Baltic excluded from alert)
  4. Applies concentration thresholds (typically 2-3 aircraft per operator)

Critical Combinations

Certain operator-region combinations trigger critical severity alerts:

Operator Region Rationale
PLAAF Taiwan Strait Potential invasion rehearsal
Russian VKS Arctic Nuclear bomber patrols
USAF Persian Gulf Potential strike package

Signal Output

Foreign presence detection generates a foreign_military_presence signal:

Field Content
Title "Foreign Military Presence: [Region]"
Details "[Operator] aircraft detected: [count] [types]"
Severity Critical/High/Medium based on combination
Confidence 0.70.95 based on aircraft count and type diversity

Aircraft Enrichment

Military aircraft tracking is enhanced with Wingbits enrichment data, providing detailed aircraft information that goes beyond basic transponder data.

What Wingbits Provides

When an aircraft is detected via OpenSky ADS-B, the system queries Wingbits for:

Field Description Use Case
Registration Aircraft tail number (e.g., N12345) Unique identification
Owner Legal owner of the aircraft Military branch detection
Operator Operating entity Distinguish military vs. contractor
Manufacturer Boeing, Lockheed Martin, etc. Aircraft type classification
Model Specific aircraft model Capability assessment
Built Year Year of manufacture Fleet age analysis

Military Classification Algorithm

The enrichment service analyzes owner and operator fields against curated keyword lists:

Confirmed Military (owner/operator match):

  • Government: "United States Air Force", "Department of Defense", "Royal Air Force"
  • International: "NATO", "Ministry of Defence", "Bundeswehr"

Likely Military (operator ICAO codes):

  • AIO (Air Mobility Command), RRR (Royal Air Force), GAF (German Air Force)
  • RCH (REACH flights), CNV (Convoy flights), DOD (Department of Defense)

Possible Military (defense contractors):

  • Northrop Grumman, Lockheed Martin, General Atomics, Raytheon, Boeing Defense, L3Harris

Aircraft Type Matching:

  • Transport: C-17, C-130, C-5, KC-135, KC-46
  • Reconnaissance: RC-135, U-2, RQ-4, E-3, E-8
  • Combat: F-15, F-16, F-22, F-35, B-52, B-2
  • European: Eurofighter, Typhoon, Rafale, Tornado, Gripen

Confidence Levels

Each enriched aircraft receives a confidence classification:

Level Criteria Display
Confirmed Direct military owner/operator match Green badge
Likely Military ICAO code or aircraft type Yellow badge
Possible Defense contractor ownership Gray badge
Civilian No military indicators No badge

Caching Strategy

Aircraft details rarely change, so aggressive caching reduces API load:

  • Server-side: HTTP Cache-Control headers (24-hour max-age)
  • Client-side: 1-hour local cache per aircraft
  • Batch optimization: Up to 20 aircraft per API call

This means an aircraft's details are fetched at most once per day, regardless of how many times it appears on the map.


Space Launch Infrastructure

The Spaceports layer displays global launch facilities for monitoring space-related activity and supply chain implications.

Tracked Launch Sites

Site Country Operator Activity Level
Kennedy Space Center USA NASA/Space Force High
Vandenberg SFB USA US Space Force Medium
Starbase USA SpaceX High
Baikonur Cosmodrome Kazakhstan Roscosmos Medium
Plesetsk Cosmodrome Russia Roscosmos/Military Medium
Vostochny Cosmodrome Russia Roscosmos Low
Jiuquan SLC China CNSA High
Xichang SLC China CNSA High
Wenchang SLC China CNSA Medium
Guiana Space Centre France ESA/CNES Medium
Satish Dhawan SC India ISRO Medium
Tanegashima SC Japan JAXA Low

Why This Matters

Space launches are geopolitically significant:

  • Military implications: Many launches are dual-use (civilian/military)
  • Technology competition: Launch cadence indicates space program advancement
  • Supply chain: Satellite services affect communications, GPS, reconnaissance
  • Incident correlation: News about space debris, failed launches, or policy changes

Critical Mineral Deposits

The Minerals layer displays strategic mineral extraction sites essential for modern technology and defense supply chains.

Tracked Resources

Mineral Strategic Importance Major Producers
Lithium EV batteries, energy storage Australia, Chile, China
Cobalt Battery cathodes, superalloys DRC (60%+ global), Australia
Rare Earths Magnets, electronics, defense China (60%+ global), Australia, USA

Key Sites

Site Mineral Country Significance
Greenbushes Lithium Australia World's largest hard-rock lithium mine
Salar de Atacama Lithium Chile Largest brine lithium source
Mutanda Cobalt DRC World's largest cobalt mine
Tenke Fungurume Cobalt DRC Major Chinese-owned cobalt source
Bayan Obo Rare Earths China 45% of global REE production
Mountain Pass Rare Earths USA Only active US rare earth mine

Supply Chain Risks

Critical minerals are geopolitically concentrated:

  • Cobalt: 70% from DRC, significant artisanal mining concerns
  • Rare Earths: 60% from China, processing nearly monopolized
  • Lithium: Expanding production but demand outpacing supply

News about these regions or mining companies can signal supply disruptions affecting technology and defense sectors.


Cyber Threat Actors (APT Groups)

The map displays geographic attribution markers for major state-sponsored Advanced Persistent Threat (APT) groups. These markers show the approximate operational centers of known threat actors.

Tracked Groups

Group Aliases Sponsor Notable Activity
APT28/29 Fancy Bear, Cozy Bear Russia (GRU/FSB) Election interference, government espionage
APT41 Double Dragon China (MSS) Supply chain attacks, intellectual property theft
Lazarus Hidden Cobra North Korea (RGB) Financial theft, cryptocurrency heists
APT33/35 Elfin, Charming Kitten Iran (IRGC) Critical infrastructure, aerospace targeting

Why This Matters

Cyber operations often correlate with geopolitical tensions. When news reports reference Russian cyber activity during a Ukraine escalation, or Iranian hacking during Middle East tensions, these markers provide geographic context for the threat landscape.

Visual Indicators

APT markers appear as warning triangles (⚠) with distinct styling. Clicking a marker shows:

  • Official designation and common aliases
  • State sponsor and intelligence agency
  • Primary targeting sectors

Social Unrest Tracking

The Protests layer aggregates civil unrest data from two independent sources, providing corroboration and global coverage.

ACLED (Armed Conflict Location & Event Data)

Academic-grade conflict data with human-verified events:

  • Coverage: Global, 30-day rolling window
  • Event types: Protests, riots, strikes, demonstrations
  • Metadata: Actors involved, fatalities, detailed notes
  • Confidence: High (human-curated)

GDELT (Global Database of Events, Language, and Tone)

Real-time news-derived event data:

  • Coverage: Global, 7-day rolling window
  • Event types: Geocoded protest mentions from news
  • Volume: Reports per location (signal strength)
  • Confidence: Medium (algorithmic extraction)

Multi-Source Corroboration

Events from both sources are deduplicated using a 0.5° spatial grid and date matching. When both ACLED and GDELT report events in the same area:

  • Confidence is elevated to "high"
  • ACLED data takes precedence (higher accuracy)
  • Source list shows corroboration

Severity Classification

Severity Criteria
High Fatalities reported, riots, or clashes
Medium Large demonstrations, strikes
Low Smaller protests, localized events

Events near intelligence hotspots are cross-referenced to provide geopolitical context.

Map Display Filtering

To reduce visual clutter and focus attention on significant events, the map displays only high-severity protests and riots:

Displayed Event Type Visual
Yes Riot Bright red marker
Yes High-severity protest Red marker
No Medium/low-severity protest Not shown on map

Lower-severity events are still tracked for CII scoring and data exports—they simply don't create map markers. This filtering prevents dense urban areas (which naturally generate more low-severity demonstrations) from overwhelming the map display.


Aviation Monitoring

The Flights layer tracks airport delays and ground stops at major US airports using FAA NASSTATUS data.

Delay Types

Type Description
Ground Stop No departures permitted; severe disruption
Ground Delay Departures held; arrival rate limiting
Arrival Delay Inbound traffic backed up
Departure Delay Outbound traffic delayed

Severity Thresholds

Severity Average Delay Visual
Severe ≥60 minutes Red
Major 45-59 minutes Orange
Moderate 25-44 minutes Yellow
Minor 15-24 minutes Gray

Monitored Airports

The 30 largest US airports are tracked:

  • Major hubs: JFK, LAX, ORD, ATL, DFW, DEN, SFO
  • International gateways with high traffic volume
  • Airports frequently affected by weather or congestion

Ground stops are particularly significant—they indicate severe disruption (weather, security, or infrastructure failure) and can cascade across the network.


Security & Input Validation

The dashboard handles untrusted data from dozens of external sources. Defense-in-depth measures prevent injection attacks and API abuse.

XSS Prevention

All user-visible content is sanitized before DOM insertion:

escapeHtml(str)  // Encodes & < > " ' as HTML entities
sanitizeUrl(url) // Allows only http/https protocols

This applies to:

  • News headlines and sources (RSS feeds)
  • Search results and highlights
  • Monitor keywords (user input)
  • Map popup content
  • Tension pair labels

The <mark> highlighting in search escapes text before wrapping matches, preventing injection via crafted search queries.

Proxy Endpoint Validation

Serverless proxy functions validate and clamp all parameters:

Endpoint Validation
/api/yahoo-finance Symbol format [A-Za-z0-9.^=-], max 20 chars
/api/coingecko Coin IDs alphanumeric+hyphen, max 20 IDs
/api/polymarket Order field allowlist, limit clamped 1-100

This prevents upstream API abuse and rate limit exhaustion from malformed requests.

Content Security

  • URLs are validated via URL() constructor—only http: and https: protocols are permitted
  • External links use rel="noopener" to prevent reverse tabnapping
  • No inline scripts or eval()—all code is bundled at build time

Fault Tolerance

External APIs are unreliable. Rate limits, outages, and network errors are inevitable. The system implements circuit breaker patterns to maintain availability.

Circuit Breaker Pattern

Each external service is wrapped in a circuit breaker that tracks failures:

Normal → Failure #1 → Failure #2 → OPEN (cooldown)
                                      ↓
                              5 minutes pass
                                      ↓
                                   CLOSED

Behavior during cooldown:

  • New requests return cached data (if available)
  • UI shows "temporarily unavailable" status
  • No API calls are made (prevents hammering)

Protected Services

Service Cooldown Cache TTL
Yahoo Finance 5 min 10 min
Polymarket 5 min 10 min
USGS Earthquakes 5 min 10 min
NWS Weather 5 min 10 min
FRED Economic 5 min 10 min
Cloudflare Radar 5 min 10 min
ACLED 5 min 10 min
GDELT 5 min 10 min
FAA Status 5 min 5 min
RSS Feeds 5 min per feed 10 min

RSS feeds use per-feed circuit breakers—one failing feed doesn't affect others.

Graceful Degradation

When a service enters cooldown:

  1. Cached data continues to display (stale but available)
  2. Status panel shows service health
  3. Automatic recovery when cooldown expires
  4. No user intervention required

System Health Monitoring

The status panel (accessed via the health indicator in the header) provides real-time visibility into data source status and system health.

Health Indicator

The header displays a system health badge:

State Visual Meaning
Healthy Green dot All data sources operational
Degraded Yellow dot Some sources in cooldown
Unhealthy Red dot Multiple sources failing

Click the indicator to expand the full status panel.

Data Source Status

The status panel lists all data feeds with their current state:

Status Icon Description
Active ● Green Fetching data normally
Cooldown ● Yellow Temporarily paused (circuit breaker)
Disabled ○ Gray Layer not enabled
Error ● Red Persistent failure

Per-Feed Information

Each feed entry shows:

  • Source name - The data provider
  • Last update - Time since last successful fetch
  • Next refresh - Countdown to next scheduled fetch
  • Cooldown remaining - Time until circuit breaker resets (if in cooldown)

Why This Matters

External APIs are unreliable. The status panel helps you understand:

  • Data freshness - Is the news feed current or stale?
  • Coverage gaps - Which sources are currently unavailable?
  • Recovery timeline - When will failed sources retry?

This transparency enables informed interpretation of the dashboard data.


Data Freshness Tracking

Beyond simple "online/offline" status, the system tracks fine-grained freshness for each data source to indicate data reliability and staleness.

Freshness Levels

Status Color Criteria Meaning
Fresh Green Updated within expected interval Data is current
Aging Yellow 1-2× expected interval elapsed Data may be slightly stale
Stale Orange 2-4× expected interval elapsed Data is outdated
Critical Red >4× expected interval elapsed Data unreliable
Disabled Gray Layer toggled off Not fetching

Source-Specific Thresholds

Each data source has calibrated freshness expectations:

Source Expected Interval "Fresh" Threshold
News feeds 5 minutes <10 minutes
Stock quotes 1 minute <5 minutes
Earthquakes 5 minutes <15 minutes
Weather 10 minutes <30 minutes
Flight delays 10 minutes <20 minutes
AIS vessels Real-time <1 minute

Visual Indicators

The status panel displays freshness for each source:

  • Colored dot indicates freshness level
  • Time since update shows exact staleness
  • Next refresh countdown shows when data will update

Why This Matters

Understanding data freshness is critical for decision-making:

  • A "fresh" earthquake feed means recent events are displayed
  • A "stale" news feed means you may be missing breaking stories
  • A "critical" AIS stream means vessel positions are unreliable

This visibility enables appropriate confidence calibration when interpreting the dashboard.

Core vs. Optional Sources

Data sources are classified by their importance to risk assessment:

Classification Sources Impact
Core GDELT, RSS feeds Required for meaningful risk scores
Optional ACLED, Military, AIS, Weather, Economic Enhance but not required

The Strategic Risk Overview panel adapts its display based on core source availability:

Status Display Mode Behavior
Sufficient Full data view All metrics shown with confidence
Limited Limited data view Shows "Limited Data" warning banner
Insufficient Insufficient data view "Insufficient Data" message, no risk score

Freshness-Aware Risk Assessment

The composite risk score is adjusted based on data freshness:

If core sources fresh:
  → Full confidence in risk score
  → "All data sources active" indicator

If core sources stale:
  → Display warning: "Limited Data - [active sources]"
  → Score shown but flagged as potentially unreliable

If core sources unavailable:
  → "Insufficient data for risk assessment"
  → No score displayed

This prevents false "all clear" signals when the system actually lacks data to make that determination.


Conditional Data Loading

API calls are expensive. The system only fetches data for enabled layers, reducing unnecessary network traffic and rate limit consumption.

Layer-Aware Loading

When a layer is toggled OFF:

  • No API calls for that data source
  • No refresh interval scheduled
  • WebSocket connections closed (for AIS)

When a layer is toggled ON:

  • Data is fetched immediately
  • Refresh interval begins
  • Loading indicator shown on toggle button

Unconfigured Services

Some data sources require API keys (AIS relay, Cloudflare Radar). If credentials are not configured:

  • The layer toggle is hidden entirely
  • No failed requests pollute the console
  • Users see only functional layers

This prevents confusion when deploying without full API access.


Performance Optimizations

The dashboard processes thousands of data points in real-time. Several techniques keep the UI responsive even with heavy data loads.

Web Worker for Analysis

CPU-intensive operations run in a dedicated Web Worker to avoid blocking the main thread:

Operation Complexity Worker?
News clustering (Jaccard) O(n²) Yes
Correlation detection O(n × m) Yes
DOM rendering O(n) Main thread

The worker manager implements:

  • Lazy initialization: Worker spawns on first use
  • 10-second ready timeout: Rejects if worker fails to initialize
  • 30-second request timeout: Prevents hanging on stuck operations
  • Automatic cleanup: Terminates worker on fatal errors

Virtual Scrolling

Large lists (100+ news items) use virtualized rendering:

Fixed-Height Mode (VirtualList):

  • Only renders items visible in viewport + 3-item overscan buffer
  • Element pooling—reuses DOM nodes rather than creating new ones
  • Invisible spacers maintain scroll position without rendering all items

Variable-Height Mode (WindowedList):

  • Chunk-based rendering (10 items per chunk)
  • Renders chunks on-scroll with 1-chunk buffer
  • CSS containment for performance isolation

This reduces DOM node count from thousands to ~30, dramatically improving scroll performance.

Request Deduplication

Identical requests within a short window are deduplicated:

  • Market quotes batch multiple symbols into single API call
  • Concurrent layer toggles don't spawn duplicate fetches
  • Promise.allSettled ensures one failing request doesn't block others

Efficient Data Updates

When refreshing data:

  • Incremental updates: Only changed items trigger re-renders
  • Stale-while-revalidate: Old data displays while fetch completes
  • Delta compression: Baselines store 7-day/30-day deltas, not raw history

Prediction Market Filtering

The Prediction Markets panel focuses on geopolitically relevant markets, filtering out sports and entertainment.

Inclusion Keywords

Markets matching these topics are displayed:

  • Conflicts: war, military, invasion, ceasefire, NATO, nuclear
  • Countries: Russia, Ukraine, China, Taiwan, Iran, Israel, Gaza
  • Leaders: Putin, Zelensky, Trump, Biden, Xi Jinping, Netanyahu
  • Economics: Fed, interest rate, inflation, recession, tariffs, sanctions
  • Global: UN, EU, treaties, summits, coups, refugees

Exclusion Keywords

Markets matching these are filtered out:

  • Sports: NBA, NFL, FIFA, World Cup, championships, playoffs
  • Entertainment: Oscars, movies, celebrities, TikTok, streaming

This ensures the panel shows markets like "Will Russia withdraw from Ukraine?" rather than "Will the Lakers win the championship?"


Panel Management

The dashboard organizes data into draggable, collapsible panels that persist user preferences across sessions.

Drag-to-Reorder

Panels can be reorganized by dragging:

  1. Grab the panel header (grip icon appears on hover)
  2. Drag to desired position
  3. Drop to reorder
  4. New order saves automatically to LocalStorage

This enables personalized layouts—put your most-watched panels at the top.

Panel Visibility

Toggle panels on/off via the Settings menu (⚙):

  • Hidden panels: Don't render, don't fetch data
  • Visible panels: Full functionality
  • Collapsed panels: Header only, data still refreshes

Hiding a panel is different from disabling a layer—the panel itself doesn't appear in the interface.

Default Panel Order

Panels are organized by intelligence priority:

Priority Panels Purpose
Critical Strategic Risk, Live Intel Immediate situational awareness
Primary News, CII, Markets Core monitoring data
Supporting Predictions, Economic, Monitor Supplementary analysis
Reference Live News Video Background context

Persistence

Panel state survives browser restarts:

  • LocalStorage: Panel order, visibility, collapsed state
  • Automatic save: Changes persist immediately
  • Per-device: Settings are browser-specific (not synced)

Mobile Experience

The dashboard is optimized for mobile devices with a streamlined interface that prioritizes usability on smaller screens.

First-Time Mobile Welcome

When accessing the dashboard on a mobile device for the first time, a welcome modal explains the mobile-optimized experience:

  • Simplified view notice - Informs users they're seeing a curated mobile version
  • Navigation tip - Explains regional view buttons and marker interaction
  • "Don't show again" option - Checkbox to skip on future visits (persisted to localStorage)

Mobile-First Design

On screens narrower than 768px or touch devices:

  • Compact map - Reduced height (40vh) to show more panels
  • Single-column layout - Panels stack vertically for easy scrolling
  • Hidden map labels - All marker labels are hidden to reduce visual clutter
  • Fixed layer set - Layer toggle buttons are hidden; a curated set of layers is enabled by default
  • Simplified controls - Map resize handle and pin button are hidden
  • Touch-optimized markers - Expanded touch targets (44px) for easy tapping
  • Hidden DEFCON indicator - Pentagon Pizza Index hidden to reduce header clutter
  • Hidden FOCUS selector - Regional focus buttons hidden (use preset views instead)
  • Compact header - Social link shows X logo instead of username text

Mobile Default Layers

The mobile experience focuses on the most essential intelligence layers:

Layer Purpose
Conflicts Active conflict zones
Hotspots Intelligence hotspots with activity levels
Sanctions Countries under economic sanctions
Outages Network disruptions
Natural Earthquakes, storms, wildfires
Weather Severe weather warnings

Layers disabled by default on mobile (but available on desktop):

  • Military bases, nuclear facilities, spaceports, minerals
  • Undersea cables, pipelines, datacenters
  • AIS vessels, military flights
  • Protests, economic centers

This curated set provides situational awareness without overwhelming the interface or consuming excessive data/battery.

Touch Gestures

Map navigation supports:

  • Pinch zoom - Two-finger zoom in/out
  • Drag pan - Single-finger map movement
  • Tap markers - Show popup (replaces hover)
  • Double-tap - Quick zoom

Performance Considerations

Mobile optimizations reduce resource consumption:

Optimization Benefit
Fewer layers Reduced API calls, lower battery usage
No labels Faster rendering, cleaner interface
Hidden controls More screen space for content
Simplified header Reduced visual processing

Desktop Experience

On larger screens, the full feature set is available:

  • Multi-column responsive panel grid
  • All layer toggles accessible
  • Map labels visible at appropriate zoom levels
  • Resizable map section
  • Pinnable map (keeps map visible while scrolling panels)
  • Full DEFCON indicator with tension pairs
  • FOCUS regional selector for rapid navigation

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:

  1. Immediate: Spot price volatility
  2. Short-term: Industrial production impacts
  3. Long-term: Geopolitical leverage shifts

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


Cross-Module Integration

Intelligence modules don't operate in isolation. Data flows between systems to enable composite analysis.

Data Flow Architecture

News Feeds → Clustering → Velocity Analysis → Hotspot Correlation
                ↓                                    ↓
         Topic Extraction                    CII Information Score
                ↓                                    ↓
         Keyword Monitors              Strategic Risk Overview
                                                     ↑
Military Flights → Near-Hotspot Detection ──────────┤
                                                     ↑
AIS Vessels → Chokepoint Monitoring ────────────────┤
                                                     ↑
ACLED/GDELT → Protest Events ───────────────────────┤
                       ↓
                CII Unrest Score

Module Dependencies

Consumer Module Data Source Integration
CII Unrest Score ACLED, GDELT protests Event count, fatalities
CII Security Score Military flights, vessels Activity near hotspots
CII Information Score News clusters Velocity, keyword matches
Strategic Risk CII, Convergence, Cascade Composite scoring
Related Assets News location inference Pipeline/cable proximity
Geographic Convergence All geo-located events Multi-type clustering

Alert Propagation

When a threshold is crossed:

  1. Source module generates alert (e.g., CII spike)
  2. Alert merges with related alerts (same country/region)
  3. Strategic Risk receives composite alert
  4. UI updates header badge and panel indicators

This ensures a single escalation (e.g., Ukraine military flights + protests + news spike) surfaces as one coherent signal rather than three separate alerts.


Refresh Intervals

Different data sources update at different frequencies based on volatility and API constraints.

Polling Schedule

Data Type Interval Rationale
News feeds 5 min Balance freshness vs. rate limits
Stock quotes 1 min Market hours require near-real-time
Crypto prices 1 min 24/7 markets, high volatility
Predictions 5 min Probabilities shift slowly
Earthquakes 5 min USGS updates every 5 min
Weather alerts 10 min NWS alert frequency
Flight delays 10 min FAA status update cadence
Internet outages 60 min BGP events are rare
Economic data 30 min FRED data rarely changes intraday
Military tracking 5 min Activity patterns need timely updates
PizzINT 10 min Foot traffic changes slowly

Real-Time Streams

AIS vessel tracking uses WebSocket for true real-time:

  • Connection: Persistent WebSocket to Railway relay
  • Messages: Position updates as vessels transmit
  • Reconnection: Automatic with exponential backoff (5s → 10s → 20s)

User Control

Time range selector affects displayed data, not fetch frequency:

Selection Effect
1 hour Show only events from last 60 minutes
6 hours Show events from last 6 hours
24 hours Show events from last day
7 days Show all recent events

Historical filtering is client-side—all data is fetched but filtered for display.


Tech Stack

Layer Technology Purpose
Language TypeScript 5.x Type safety across 50+ source files
Build Vite Fast HMR, optimized production builds
Visualization D3.js + TopoJSON SVG map rendering, zoom/pan, animations
Concurrency Web Workers Off-main-thread clustering and correlation
Networking WebSocket + REST Real-time AIS stream, HTTP for other APIs
Storage IndexedDB Snapshots, baselines (megabytes of state)
Preferences LocalStorage User settings, monitors, panel order
Deployment Vercel Edge Serverless proxies with global distribution

Key Libraries

  • D3.js: Map projection, SVG rendering, zoom behavior
  • TopoJSON: Efficient geographic data encoding
  • DOMPurify pattern: HTML escaping (custom implementation)

No External UI Frameworks

The entire UI is hand-crafted DOM manipulation—no React, Vue, or Angular. This keeps the bundle small (~200KB gzipped) and provides fine-grained control over rendering performance.

Build-Time Configuration

Vite injects configuration values at build time, enabling features like automatic version syncing:

Variable Source Purpose
__APP_VERSION__ package.json version field Header displays current version

This ensures the displayed version always matches the published package—no manual synchronization required.

// vite.config.ts
define: {
  __APP_VERSION__: JSON.stringify(pkg.version),
}

// App.ts
const header = `World Monitor v${__APP_VERSION__}`;

Installation

# Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/koala73/worldmonitor.git
cd worldmonitor

# Install dependencies
npm install

# Start development server
npm run dev

# Build for production
npm run build

API Dependencies

The dashboard fetches data from various public APIs and data sources:

Service Data Auth Required
RSS2JSON News feed parsing No
Finnhub Stock quotes (primary) Yes (free)
Yahoo Finance Stock indices & commodities (backup) No
CoinGecko Cryptocurrency prices No
USGS Earthquake data No
NASA EONET Natural events (storms, fires, volcanoes, floods) No
NWS Weather alerts No
FRED Economic indicators (Fed data) No
EIA Oil analytics (prices, production, inventory) Yes (free)
USASpending.gov Federal government contracts & awards No
Polymarket Prediction markets No
ACLED Armed conflict & protest data Yes (free)
GDELT Geo News-derived event geolocation + tensions No
GDELT Doc Topic-based intelligence feeds (cyber, military, nuclear) No
FAA NASSTATUS Airport delay status No
Cloudflare Radar Internet outage data Yes (free)
AISStream Live vessel positions Yes (relay)
OpenSky Network Military aircraft tracking Yes (free)
Wingbits Aircraft enrichment (owner, operator) Yes (free)
PizzINT Pentagon-area activity metrics No

Optional API Keys

Some features require API credentials. Without them, the corresponding layer is hidden:

Variable Service How to Get
FINNHUB_API_KEY Stock quotes (primary) Free registration at finnhub.io
EIA_API_KEY Oil analytics Free registration at eia.gov/opendata
VITE_WS_RELAY_URL AIS vessel tracking Deploy AIS relay or use hosted service
VITE_OPENSKY_RELAY_URL Military aircraft Deploy relay with OpenSky credentials
OPENSKY_CLIENT_ID OpenSky auth (relay) Free registration at opensky-network.org
OPENSKY_CLIENT_SECRET OpenSky auth (relay) API key from OpenSky account settings
CLOUDFLARE_API_TOKEN Internet outages Free Cloudflare account with Radar access
ACLED_ACCESS_TOKEN Protest data (server-side) Free registration at acleddata.com
WINGBITS_API_KEY Aircraft enrichment Contact Wingbits for API access

The dashboard functions fully without these keys—affected layers simply don't appear. Core functionality (news, markets, earthquakes, weather) requires no configuration.

Project Structure

src/
├── App.ts                    # Main application orchestrator
├── main.ts                   # Entry point
├── components/
│   ├── Map.ts                # D3.js map with 20+ toggleable layers
│   ├── MapPopup.ts           # Contextual info popups
│   ├── SearchModal.ts        # Universal search (⌘K)
│   ├── SignalModal.ts        # Signal intelligence display
│   ├── PizzIntIndicator.ts   # Pentagon Pizza Index display
│   ├── VirtualList.ts        # Virtual/windowed scrolling
│   ├── EconomicPanel.ts      # FRED economic indicators
│   ├── GdeltIntelPanel.ts    # Topic-based intelligence (cyber, military, etc.)
│   ├── LiveNewsPanel.ts      # YouTube live news streams with channel switching
│   ├── NewsPanel.ts          # News feed with clustering
│   ├── MarketPanel.ts        # Stock/commodity display
│   ├── MonitorPanel.ts       # Custom keyword monitors
│   ├── CIIPanel.ts           # Country Instability Index display
│   ├── CascadePanel.ts       # Infrastructure cascade analysis
│   ├── StrategicRiskPanel.ts # Strategic risk overview dashboard
│   └── ...
├── config/
│   ├── feeds.ts              # 70+ RSS feeds, source tiers, regional sources
│   ├── geo.ts                # 30+ hotspots, conflicts, 55 cables, waterways, spaceports, minerals
│   ├── pipelines.ts          # 88 oil & gas pipelines
│   ├── ports.ts              # 61 strategic ports worldwide
│   ├── bases-expanded.ts     # 220+ military bases
│   ├── ai-datacenters.ts     # 313 AI clusters (filtered to 111)
│   ├── airports.ts           # 30 monitored US airports
│   ├── irradiators.ts        # IAEA gamma irradiator sites
│   ├── nuclear-facilities.ts # Global nuclear infrastructure
│   ├── markets.ts            # Stock symbols, sectors
│   ├── entities.ts           # 100+ entity definitions (companies, indices, commodities, countries)
│   └── panels.ts             # Panel configs, layer defaults, mobile optimizations
├── services/
│   ├── ais.ts                # WebSocket vessel tracking
│   ├── military-vessels.ts   # Naval vessel identification
│   ├── military-flights.ts   # Aircraft tracking via OpenSky
│   ├── wingbits.ts           # Aircraft enrichment (owner, operator, type)
│   ├── pizzint.ts            # Pentagon Pizza Index + GDELT tensions
│   ├── protests.ts           # ACLED + GDELT integration
│   ├── gdelt-intel.ts        # GDELT Doc API topic intelligence
│   ├── flights.ts            # FAA delay parsing
│   ├── outages.ts            # Cloudflare Radar integration
│   ├── rss.ts                # RSS parsing with circuit breakers
│   ├── markets.ts            # Finnhub, Yahoo Finance, CoinGecko
│   ├── earthquakes.ts        # USGS integration
│   ├── eonet.ts              # NASA EONET natural events
│   ├── weather.ts            # NWS alerts
│   ├── fred.ts               # Federal Reserve data
│   ├── oil-analytics.ts      # EIA oil prices, production, inventory
│   ├── usa-spending.ts       # USASpending.gov contracts & awards
│   ├── polymarket.ts         # Prediction markets (filtered)
│   ├── clustering.ts         # Jaccard similarity clustering
│   ├── correlation.ts        # Signal detection engine
│   ├── velocity.ts           # Velocity & sentiment analysis
│   ├── related-assets.ts     # Infrastructure near news events
│   ├── activity-tracker.ts   # New item detection & highlighting
│   ├── analysis-worker.ts    # Web Worker manager
│   ├── storage.ts            # IndexedDB snapshots & baselines
│   ├── entity-index.ts       # Entity lookup maps (by alias, keyword, sector)
│   ├── entity-extraction.ts  # News-to-entity matching for market correlation
│   ├── country-instability.ts    # CII scoring algorithm
│   ├── geo-convergence.ts        # Geographic convergence detection
│   ├── infrastructure-cascade.ts # Dependency graph and cascade analysis
│   └── cross-module-integration.ts # Unified alerts and strategic risk
├── workers/
│   └── analysis.worker.ts    # Off-thread clustering & correlation
├── utils/
│   ├── circuit-breaker.ts    # Fault tolerance pattern
│   ├── sanitize.ts           # XSS prevention (escapeHtml, sanitizeUrl)
│   ├── urlState.ts           # Shareable link encoding/decoding
│   └── analysis-constants.ts # Shared thresholds for worker sync
├── styles/
└── types/
api/                          # Vercel Edge serverless proxies
├── cloudflare-outages.js     # Proxies Cloudflare Radar
├── coingecko.js              # Crypto prices with validation
├── eia/[[...path]].js        # EIA petroleum data (oil prices, production)
├── faa-status.js             # FAA ground stops/delays
├── finnhub.js                # Stock quotes (batch, primary)
├── fred-data.js              # Federal Reserve economic data
├── gdelt-doc.js              # GDELT Doc API (topic intelligence)
├── gdelt-geo.js              # GDELT Geo API (event geolocation)
├── polymarket.js             # Prediction markets with validation
├── yahoo-finance.js          # Stock indices/commodities (backup)
├── opensky-relay.js          # Military aircraft tracking
└── wingbits.js               # Aircraft enrichment proxy

Usage

Keyboard Shortcuts

  • ⌘K / Ctrl+K - Open search
  • ↑↓ - Navigate search results
  • Enter - Select result
  • Esc - Close modals

Map Controls

  • Scroll - Zoom in/out
  • Drag - Pan the map
  • Click markers - Show detailed popup with full context
  • Hover markers - Show tooltip with summary information
  • Layer toggles - Show/hide data layers

Map Marker Design

Infrastructure markers (nuclear facilities, economic centers, ports) display without labels to reduce visual clutter. Full information is available through interaction:

Layer Label Behavior Interaction
Nuclear facilities Hidden Click for popover with details
Economic centers Hidden Click for popover with details
Protests Hidden Hover for tooltip, click for details
Military bases Hidden Click for popover with base info
Hotspots Visible Color-coded activity levels
Conflicts Visible Status and involved parties

This design prioritizes geographic awareness over label density—users can quickly scan for markers and then interact for context.

Panel Management

  • Drag panels - Reorder layout
  • Settings (⚙) - Toggle panel visibility

The current view state is encoded in the URL, enabling:

  • Bookmarking: Save specific views for quick access
  • Sharing: Send colleagues a link to your exact map position and layer configuration
  • Deep linking: Link directly to a specific region or feature

Encoded Parameters:

Parameter Description
lat, lon Map center coordinates
zoom Zoom level (1-10)
time Active time filter (1h, 6h, 24h, 7d)
view Preset view (global, us, mena)
layers Comma-separated enabled layer IDs

Example: ?lat=38.9&lon=-77&zoom=6&layers=bases,conflicts,hotspots

Values are validated and clamped to prevent invalid states.

Data Sources

News Feeds

Aggregates 70+ RSS feeds from major news outlets, government sources, and specialty publications with source-tier prioritization. Categories include world news, MENA, Africa, Latin America, Asia-Pacific, energy, technology, AI/ML, finance, government releases, defense/intel, think tanks, and international crisis organizations.

Geospatial Data

  • Hotspots: 30+ global intelligence hotspots with keyword correlation (including Sahel, Haiti, Horn of Africa)
  • Conflicts: 10+ active conflict zones with involved parties
  • Military Bases: 220+ installations from US, NATO, Russia, China, and allies
  • Pipelines: 88 operating oil/gas pipelines across all continents
  • Undersea Cables: 55 major submarine cable routes
  • Nuclear: 100+ power plants, weapons labs, enrichment facilities
  • AI Infrastructure: 111 major compute clusters (≥10k GPUs)
  • Strategic Waterways: 8 critical chokepoints
  • Ports: 61 strategic ports (container, oil/LNG, naval, chokepoint)

Live APIs

  • USGS: Earthquake feed (M4.5+ global)
  • NASA EONET: Natural events (storms, wildfires, volcanoes, floods)
  • NWS: Severe weather alerts (US)
  • FAA: Airport delays and ground stops
  • Cloudflare Radar: Internet outage detection
  • AIS: Real-time vessel positions
  • ACLED/GDELT: Protest and unrest events
  • Yahoo Finance: Stock quotes and indices
  • CoinGecko: Cryptocurrency prices
  • FRED: Federal Reserve economic data
  • Polymarket: Prediction market odds

Data Attribution

This project uses data from the following sources. Please respect their terms of use.

Aircraft Tracking

Data provided by The OpenSky Network. If you use this data in publications, please cite:

Matthias Schäfer, Martin Strohmeier, Vincent Lenders, Ivan Martinovic and Matthias Wilhelm. "Bringing Up OpenSky: A Large-scale ADS-B Sensor Network for Research". In Proceedings of the 13th IEEE/ACM International Symposium on Information Processing in Sensor Networks (IPSN), pages 83-94, April 2014.

Conflict & Protest Data

Financial Data

  • Stock Quotes: Powered by Finnhub (primary), with Yahoo Finance as backup for indices and commodities
  • Cryptocurrency: Powered by CoinGecko API
  • Economic Indicators: Data from FRED, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

Geophysical Data

Infrastructure & Transport

Other Sources

Acknowledgments

Original dashboard concept inspired by Reggie James (@HipCityReg) - with thanks for the vision of a comprehensive situation awareness tool

Special thanks to Yanal at Wingbits for providing API access for aircraft enrichment data, enabling military aircraft classification and ownership tracking


Limitations & Caveats

This project is a proof of concept demonstrating what's possible with publicly available data. While functional, there are important limitations:

Data Completeness

Some data sources require paid accounts for full access:

  • ACLED: Free tier has API restrictions; Research tier required for programmatic access
  • OpenSky Network: Rate-limited; commercial tiers offer higher quotas
  • Satellite AIS: Global coverage requires commercial providers (Spire, Kpler, etc.)

The dashboard works with free tiers but may have gaps in coverage or update frequency.

AIS Coverage Bias

The Ships layer uses terrestrial AIS receivers via AISStream.io. This creates a geographic bias:

  • Strong coverage: European waters, Atlantic, major ports
  • Weak coverage: Middle East, open ocean, remote regions

Terrestrial receivers only detect vessels within ~50km of shore. Satellite AIS (commercial) provides true global coverage but is not included in this free implementation.

Blocked Data Sources

Some publishers block requests from cloud providers (Vercel, Railway, AWS):

  • RSS feeds from certain outlets may fail with 403 errors
  • This is a common anti-bot measure, not a bug in the dashboard
  • Affected feeds are automatically disabled via circuit breakers

The system degrades gracefully—blocked sources are skipped while others continue functioning.


Roadmap

See ROADMAP.md for detailed planning. Recent intelligence enhancements:

Completed

  • Multi-Signal Geographic Convergence - Alerts when 3+ data types converge on same region within 24h
  • Country Instability Index (CII) - Real-time composite risk score for 20 Tier-1 countries
  • Infrastructure Cascade Visualization - Dependency graph showing downstream effects of disruptions
  • Strategic Risk Overview - Unified alert system with cross-module correlation and deduplication
  • GDELT Topic Intelligence - Categorized feeds for military, cyber, nuclear, and sanctions topics
  • OpenSky Authentication - OAuth2 credentials for military aircraft tracking via relay
  • Human-Readable Locations - Convergence alerts show place names instead of coordinates
  • Data Freshness Tracking - Status panel shows enabled/disabled state for all feeds
  • CII Scoring Bias Prevention - Log scaling and conflict zone floors prevent news volume bias
  • Alert Warmup Period - Suppresses false positives on dashboard startup
  • Significant Protest Filtering - Map shows only riots and high-severity protests
  • Intelligence Findings Detail Modal - Click any alert for full context and component breakdown
  • Build-Time Version Sync - Header version auto-syncs with package.json
  • Tech Monitor Variant - Dedicated technology sector dashboard with startup ecosystems, cloud regions, and tech events
  • Smart Marker Clustering - Geographic grouping of nearby markers with click-to-expand popups
  • Variant Switcher UI - Compact orbital navigation between World Monitor and Tech Monitor
  • CII Learning Mode - 15-minute calibration period with visual progress indicator
  • Regional Tech Coverage - Verified tech HQ data for MENA, Europe, Asia-Pacific hubs

Planned

High Priority:

  • Temporal Anomaly Detection - Flag activity unusual for time of day/week/year (e.g., "military flights 3x normal for Tuesday")
  • Trade Route Risk Scoring - Real-time supply chain vulnerability for major shipping routes (Asia→Europe, Middle East→Europe, etc.)

Medium Priority:

  • Historical Playback - Review past dashboard states with timeline scrubbing
  • Election Calendar Integration - Auto-boost sensitivity 30 days before major elections
  • Choropleth CII Map Layer - Country-colored overlay showing instability scores

Future Enhancements:

  • Alert Webhooks - Push critical alerts to Slack, Discord, email
  • Custom Country Watchlists - User-defined Tier-2 country monitoring
  • Additional Data Sources - World Bank, IMF, OFAC sanctions, UNHCR refugee data, FAO food security
  • Think Tank Feeds - RUSI, Chatham House, ECFR, CFR, Wilson Center, CNAS, Arms Control Association

The full ROADMAP.md documents implementation details, API endpoints, and 30+ free data sources for future integration.


Design Philosophy

Information density over aesthetics. Every pixel should convey signal. The dark interface minimizes eye strain during extended monitoring sessions. Panels are collapsible, draggable, and hideable—customize to show only what matters.

Authority matters. Not all sources are equal. Wire services and official government channels are prioritized over aggregators and blogs. When multiple sources report the same story, the most authoritative source is displayed as primary.

Correlation over accumulation. Raw news feeds are noise. The value is in clustering related stories, detecting velocity changes, and identifying cross-source patterns. A single "Broadcom +2.5% explained by AI chip news" signal is more valuable than showing both data points separately.

Signal, not noise. Deduplication is aggressive. The same market move doesn't generate repeated alerts. Signals include confidence scores so you can prioritize attention. Alert fatigue is the enemy of situational awareness.

Knowledge-first matching. Simple keyword matching produces false positives. The entity knowledge base understands that AVGO is Broadcom, that Broadcom competes with Nvidia, and that both are in semiconductors. This semantic layer transforms naive string matching into intelligent correlation.

Fail gracefully. External APIs are unreliable. Circuit breakers prevent cascading failures. Cached data displays during outages. The status panel shows exactly what's working and what isn't—no silent failures.

Local-first. No accounts, no cloud sync. All preferences and history stored locally. The only network traffic is fetching public data. Your monitoring configuration is yours alone.

Compute where it matters. CPU-intensive operations (clustering, correlation) run in Web Workers to keep the UI responsive. The main thread handles only rendering and user interaction.


Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Whether you're fixing bugs, adding features, improving documentation, or suggesting ideas, your help makes this project better.

Getting Started

  1. Fork the repository on GitHub
  2. Clone your fork locally:
    git clone https://github.com/YOUR_USERNAME/worldmonitor.git
    cd worldmonitor
    
  3. Install dependencies:
    npm install
    
  4. Create a feature branch:
    git checkout -b feature/your-feature-name
    
  5. Start the development server:
    npm run dev
    

Code Style & Conventions

This project follows specific patterns to maintain consistency:

TypeScript

  • Strict type checking enabled—avoid any where possible
  • Use interfaces for data structures, types for unions
  • Prefer const over let, never use var

Architecture

  • Services (src/services/) handle data fetching and business logic
  • Components (src/components/) handle UI rendering
  • Config (src/config/) contains static data and constants
  • Utils (src/utils/) contain shared helper functions

Security

  • Always use escapeHtml() when rendering user-controlled or external data
  • Use sanitizeUrl() for any URLs from external sources
  • Validate and clamp parameters in API proxy endpoints

Performance

  • Expensive computations should run in the Web Worker
  • Use virtual scrolling for lists with 50+ items
  • Implement circuit breakers for external API calls

No Comments Policy

  • Code should be self-documenting through clear naming
  • Only add comments for non-obvious algorithms or workarounds
  • Never commit commented-out code

Submitting a Pull Request

  1. Ensure your code builds:

    npm run build
    
  2. Test your changes manually in the browser

  3. Write a clear commit message:

    Add earthquake magnitude filtering to map layer
    
    - Adds slider control to filter by minimum magnitude
    - Persists preference to localStorage
    - Updates URL state for shareable links
    
  4. Push to your fork:

    git push origin feature/your-feature-name
    
  5. Open a Pull Request with:

    • A clear title describing the change
    • Description of what the PR does and why
    • Screenshots for UI changes
    • Any breaking changes or migration notes

What Makes a Good PR

Do Don't
Focus on one feature or fix Bundle unrelated changes
Follow existing code patterns Introduce new frameworks without discussion
Keep changes minimal and targeted Refactor surrounding code unnecessarily
Update README if adding features Add features without documentation
Test edge cases Assume happy path only

Types of Contributions

🐛 Bug Fixes

  • Found something broken? Fix it and submit a PR
  • Include steps to reproduce in the PR description

New Features

  • New data layers (with public API sources)
  • UI/UX improvements
  • Performance optimizations
  • New signal detection algorithms

📊 Data Sources

  • Additional RSS feeds for news aggregation
  • New geospatial datasets (bases, infrastructure, etc.)
  • Alternative APIs for existing data

📝 Documentation

  • Clarify existing documentation
  • Add examples and use cases
  • Fix typos and improve readability

🔒 Security

  • Report vulnerabilities via GitHub Issues (non-critical) or email (critical)
  • XSS prevention improvements
  • Input validation enhancements

Review Process

  1. Automated checks run on PR submission
  2. Maintainer review within a few days
  3. Feedback addressed through commits to the same branch
  4. Merge once approved

PRs that don't follow the code style or introduce security issues will be asked to revise.

Development Tips

Adding a New Data Layer

  1. Create service in src/services/ for data fetching
  2. Add layer toggle in src/components/Map.ts
  3. Add rendering logic for map markers/overlays
  4. Add to help panel documentation
  5. Update README with layer description

Adding a New API Proxy

  1. Create handler in api/ directory
  2. Implement input validation (see existing proxies)
  3. Add appropriate cache headers
  4. Document any required environment variables

Debugging

  • Browser DevTools → Network tab for API issues
  • Console logs prefixed with [ServiceName] for easy filtering
  • Circuit breaker status visible in browser console

License

MIT

Author

Elie Habib


Built for situational awareness and open-source intelligence gathering.