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Coffee chain Starbucks has begun asking its UK customers their names in a bid to appear more friendly. But do people really want to be on first name terms with their barista?

"Handshake is a decentralized, permissionless naming protocol where every peer is validating and in charge of managing the root DNS naming zone with the goal of creating an alternative to existing Certificate Authorities and naming systems."

"The extraordinary growth of state surveillance of the UK population has been fuelled by political and technological developments in recent decades. But in the name of national security, the state has been eavesdropping on us for far longer than that."

" Bose's $350 wireless headphones need an app to "get the most" out of them, and this app monitors everything you listen to -- the names of the podcasts, the music, videos, etc -- and sends them to Bose without your permission, according to a lawsuit filed this week in Chicago by Kyle Zak."

A couple of years ago, I was heavily involved in analysing and reporting on the massive VTech hack, the one where millions of records were exposed including kids' names, genders, ages, photos and the relationship to parents' records which included their home address. Part of this data was collected via an IoT device called the InnoTab which is a wifi connected tablet designed for young kids; think Fisher Price designing an iPad... then totally screwing up the security.

"Users of Turkey's equivalent to Reddit received an unsettling message late last night. Across the site, users began complaining that they'd received a mysterious DM from an account named "iamwaldo" that left many people feeling paranoid and anxious. It appears that was the intention of the message, which is actually a viral marketing ploy to promote the new season of Black Mirror."

Keyoxide allows you to prove "ownership" of accounts on websites, domain names, IM, etc., regardless of your username.

"PubHubs is the name for a new Dutch community network, based on public values. PubHubs stands for Public Hubs. It is open and transparent and protects data of the network's participants. PubHubs aims to connect people, in different hubs, such as your family, sports club, school class, museum, local library, neighborhood, or municipality. In each such hub, a relevant part of one's own identity plays a role. PubHubs focuses on reliable information, if necessary with digital signatures, and on trusted communication, if necessary with guarantees of the identity of participants."