This article examines the telephone’s entangled history within contemporary infrastructural systems of ‘big data’, identity and, ultimately, surveillance. It explores the use of telephone numbers, keypads and wires to offer new perspective on the imbrication of telephonic information, interface and infrastructure within contemporary surveillance regimes. The article explores telephone exchanges as arbiters of cultural identities, keypads as the foundation of digital transactions and wireline networks as enacting the transformation of citizens and consumers into digital subjects ripe for commodification and surveillance. Ultimately, this article argues that telephone history – specifically the histories of telephone numbers and keypads as well as infrastructure and policy in the United States – continues to inform contemporary practices of social and economic exchange as they relate to consumer identity, as well as to current discourses about surveillance and privacy in a digital age.

本文考察了电话在现代基础设施系统中“大数据”，身份和最终监控的纠缠历史。它探索了电话号码，小键盘和电线的使用，从而为现代监视机制中的电话信息，接口和基础设施的融合提供了新的视角。本文探讨了作为文化身份仲裁者的电话交换机，作为数字交易基础的键盘和有线网络，将公民和消费者转变为成熟的商品化和监控性数字主题。最终，