Internet of things: the greatest mass surveillance infrastructure ever?

Does the expanding network of connected devices herald a brave new compact for our digital lives – or the end of politics?The word “thing”, in Old English, means a meeting or assembly. In the epic poem Beowulf, the eponymous hero declares he’ll “alone hold a thing” with the monster Grendel, who is terrorising the Danes in the great hall of Heorot. Beowulf uses “thing” euphemistically – it is a meeting that immediately descends into a fight.The Icelandic parliament is still call