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Planned obsolescence, the tidy art of selling people the same product more than once. Why sell someone a product that lasts when you can sell them the same product repeatedly? It started in the 1920s, when a group of German industrialists, presumably while twirling their moustaches, formed the Phoebus cartel and decided light bulbs were too reliable. From then on, bulbs would dutifully expire after 1,000 hours, like clockwork. And thus, the great tradition of engineering things to fail was born. ...

The UKUSA Agreement alias the Five Eyes (FVEY), because nothing says “trustworthy global surveillance” like a name ripped from a bad spy thriller. Born in 1946 as a cosy little signals intelligence pact between Britain and America, it soon expanded like an overeager book club, roping in Canada (1948), Australia, and New Zealand (1956) for good measure. Of course, it was all top secret until 1999, when Australia, bless its honest little heart, accidentally let slip that, oops, the Anglosphere had been running the world’s most invasive eavesdropping operation for half a century. ...

The GDPR, Europe’s flagship privacy reform, drafted by people who appear to believe consent forms are the pinnacle of human interaction. Born from the 1995 Data Protection Directive (which was about as fit for the digital age as a fax machine), it was billed as a way to “strengthen privacy rights” and “boost Europe’s digital economy”. What it produced was pop-up hell, a quiet corporate scramble, and a cottage industry of “GDPR consultants” who appear never to have met a compliance checkbox they didn’t adore. ...