← STATION ATP-D2 · SIGNAL & NOISE
METHODOLOGY
Signal & Noise · ATP-D2

How the stamps work

The whole method in one sentence: the distance between the hero copy and the Terms of Service is the most honest metric in this industry — so we measure it.

1. Fine print first

Every review starts where the marketing ends: the product's own terms of service, disclaimers, pricing pages, and footers. Most of what we report, the companies published about themselves and hoped you wouldn't read. When a product's own fine print contradicts its own advertising, that gap is the finding.

2. Receipts required

Claims need receipts: SEC filings, court dockets, regulator warnings, BBB classifications, trust-score services, quoted terms, original screenshots of the actual ads that surfaced the product. When the evidence doesn't support a claim, we say so on air and don't make the claim — and when a company's paperwork survives the frisk, we say that too, on the record.

3. The binary stamp

Every product leaves with exactly one verdict. SIGNAL — legit or close to it, worth watching. NOISE — stay away. No third stamp, no fence. The stamp doesn't measure how smart the machine is; it measures how honestly the seller describes what you're buying. Every SIGNAL on our board got there the same way: telling the truth about what it is.

4. The signal meter

The 0–10 meter carries the nuance the binary can't: a regulated broker with published pricing locks in around 9; a zero-trust-score WhatsApp funnel sits at 0. Two products can share a NOISE stamp for very different reasons — the meter and the write-up say why.

5. How products get picked

A standing review queue, consumed strictly first-in-first-out — no pay-for-placement, no skipping ahead, no vendetta ordering. Products enter from research and from real ads that find our own feeds; paid-social ads are a primary sensor precisely because they're invisible to search engines.

6. The money rules

We never take affiliate money from anything stamped NOISE — those links exist for transparency only. If we ever carry an affiliate relationship on a SIGNAL product, it gets disclosed on the page, plainly. Nobody can buy a stamp, in either direction.

7. Corrections, dated

When we get something wrong, the fix is published with a date, not quietly painted over. Corrections to date:

8. Predictions on the record

The Ledger — nine predictions about this industry, dated July 22, 2026 — is the station's falsifiable spine. Episodes cite it with the full prediction restated and the week's receipt beside it. Standing rule: every referenced prediction is re-stated in full where it's used, so no episode requires homework.

Who applies this method? Clark Devereaux, in collaboration with Raymond Todd Blackwood — the full story is on the About page.