Spark & Anvil Privacy

Privacy & how it works

SignalForge on the web is built the same way as our iOS apps: private by design.

Everything stays on this device

Your progress — which missions you've mastered and your stars — is stored only in this browser (on-device storage). It is never sent anywhere. Clear your browser data and it's gone; nobody else can see it.

No accounts, no ads, no tracking

There is no sign-up and no login. There are no ads and no in-app purchases. There are no third-party trackers embedded in the app.

Learn media & data from the operator's chair

SignalForge teaches statistics and media literacy by having you RUN a pretend creator channel — read the analytics, A/B-test fairly, and see (safely, in a simulation) what rage-bait and misinformation actually do and what they cost. Two studies of Twitter back the simulation: false news stories spread farther and faster than true ones (Vosoughi, Roy & Aral, 2018), and people whose outraged posts got likes and retweets tended to post more outrage afterwards (Brady et al., 2021). The cost lands on trust and on the people in the comments. It is inoculation by understanding, never a how-to-manipulate manual: every lesson surfaces the consequence and the ethical frame. Built for ages 9–14 and aligned to CCSS 6.RP–8.SP statistics plus ISTE digital-citizenship and CASEL responsible decision-making. A hint appears only after a first try, and the correct answer and reasoning are always shown.

Spark & Anvil is a non-profit, 501(c)(3) pending. Apps stay free forever. This page is a plain-language summary, not legal advice.

For parents & educators Site privacy policy

Where this idea comes from· Nightingale 1858 · Huff 1954

A chart can tell the truth, or bend it

In 1858 Florence Nightingale drew wedge charts of soldiers’ deaths in the Crimean War. They showed that far more men died of disease in the hospitals than of wounds, and she used them to argue for cleaner army hospitals. In 1954 Darrell Huff’s How to Lie with Statistics showed the opposite trick: the "gee-whiz graph", where cutting off the bottom of the axis makes a small rise look huge.

One thing to hold: An axis that starts at zero, and the size of the sample, printed beside the chart.

Why it matters: The same numbers can be drawn honestly or to fool you. Checking where the axis starts and how many people were asked is the first question to ask of any chart.

Two words:

  • Sample The few you asked, standing in for the many. How many would you need? (Merriam-Webster, "sample")
  • Bait Food on a hook. What makes a headline bait? (Merriam-Webster, "bait")

Sources: Florence Nightingale, Notes on Matters Affecting the Health, Efficiency, and Hospital Administration of the British Army (1858) · Darrell Huff, How to Lie with Statistics (1954)