海角大神

The actual size and reach of the聽shadowy hacktivist collective Anonymous has long been the fodder of online squabbles. It's diminished聽by detractors and puffed up by ardent devotees.

So, a聽University of聽Copenhagen graduate student set out to聽determine the actual extent of Anonymous' influence around the world. And, it turns out that Anonymous appears to have a wider scope and is more international than previously imagined.

Even academics who study Anonymous were surprised.聽"The Anonymous network is larger than many of us thought," said聽Gabriella Coleman, an anthropology professor at McGill University and author of "Hacker, Hoaxer, Whistleblower, Spy: The Many Faces of Anonymous."

The analysis looks at Facebook pages connected with Anonymous to gain insight into its international prowess.聽Yevgeniy Golovchenko, a graduate student in the school's sociology department,聽examined 2,770 Anonymous Facebook pages that generated a collective聽22.2 million "likes."聽This is just the 鈥渁bsolute minimal size鈥� of the entire global Anonymous network, Mr. Golovchenko聽explained in an interview.

The point of the study was to "show the enormity and connectivity of the Anonymous movement at a global level," he said. The end result revealed a network greater than he expected. It was even "a lot bigger than my Anon informants thought it would be," said Golovchenko.

Professor Coleman, considered the leading expert on Anonymous, says the聽data reveals "a parallel world, or really worlds, that live on Facebook" instead of other social media sites such as Twitter and Internet Relay Chat services.

It is far more likely there are more Anonymous Facebook pages than the ones in Golovchenko鈥檚 study. Facebook pages belonging to Anonymous included in his analysis had to meet at least one of the following criteria: Pages聽directly identified as Anonymous ("we are Anonymous"), shared or organized "operations," or used Anonymous symbols beyond the Guy Fawkes mask.

"The [Anonymous' network is also dynamic," he noted, since when "some pages die out, others are born."聽The average Anonymous page was connected to 18 other Anonymous pages.聽Golovchenko used Facebook 鈥渓ikes鈥� as a way to establish connections, because a 鈥渓ike鈥� acts as an 鈥渁cknowledgement,鈥� and shows the admin of one page is aware of another Anonymous contingent, in most cases in a different country. The聽"Offiziell Anonymous Page" had the most connections with 517 likes.聽It should be noted that 鈥淥ffiziell Anonymous Page鈥� hasn鈥檛 updated since December 2014.聽

Golovchenko was drawn to Anonymous' Facebook pages given these pages are a public and easily accessible aspect of the relatively secretive hacktivist collective. These Facebook pages exist to either share information, or promote and help organize projects, and if they were harder to access, they鈥檇 alienate the average person. 聽

Looking at all this Facebook data reveals several patterns. The position of the "node groupings was done by an algorithm, but it magically describes the realities of where people live in the world, to some extent,鈥� said Golovchenko. An example of this are the German Anonymous Facebook pages, like the聽Anonymous Deutschland node, which are shown as blue dots:

Another example of this regional breakdown is the Anonymous Unified Korea node, which is primarily focused in West Asia, except for that one supportive Belgian Facebook page: 聽

Looking at the聽Anonymous Angola node聽reveals an even smaller network comprised of only a few African countries with the exception being Brazil (see below). Anonymous Hacker Brazil has a much larger international network.

Through this visualization, it is easy to identify allies of certain sects, or regional Anonymous crews. For example, quite a few Brazilian Anonymous pages are connected to Anonymous in Iceland, of all countries. The聽Occupy Brazil node聽is connected to various Anonymous Facebook pages in Canada, which could聽explain why so much traffic during a recent operation against Canadian government websites聽came from Brazil.

All these networks within networks reveal an incredibly complicated communication stratus. "Even if only one-third of the likes represent actual Facebook users," noted Golovchenko, "the network is surprisingly immense 鈥� . Only few mainstream media can match the movement鈥檚 enormous internet infrastructure."

Click here to view the entire visualization.