I don’t need the “IT” Girl, I need the IT Guy now that the last of the digitally literate children has moved out of the house and for the first time in more than a decade a pair of ignorant adults have to learn how to navigate the “information technology” (IT) highway by ourselves.

But first a word from our telecom sponsor, Fairpoint, that supplies us with Internet service. If you are old enough, you may recall that Maine used to be served by New England Telephone before the break up of A.T&T last century (actually in 1991, which was not a century ago, but seems like it in IT terms). Back then one of the new “Baby Bells,” Verizon, created by the end of AT&T’s monopoly, swallowed up New England Telephone and other phone companies in the Northeast and mid-Atlantic. But when Verizon eventually decided they had bigger fish to fry elsewhere, they spun off their dispersed customers across northern New England to Fairpoint Communications for a few billion dollars back when there was still enough money sloshing around the economy that some of it spilled into Maine.

Fairpoint’s acquisition of Verizon’s northern New England customers was a case of a small but voracious predator trying to swallow something like a large-mouthed bass whole. They nearly choked to death. Although Fairpoint has emerged from bankruptcy as a reorganized company, if you are in a community where your telecommunications options are limited to Fairpoint, you might not have noticed.

Fairpoint’s acquisition of Verizon’s northern New England customers was a case of a small but voracious predator trying to swallow something like a large-mouthed bass whole. They nearly choked to death.

To complicate matters further, we switched the billing name and address of the telephone on Vinalhaven, where we maintain a seasonal presence, from one family member to another, and so had to get a new number. This seemed to be a reasonably small inconvenience until we tried to reestablish Internet communications on the island during the past weekend. Fairpoint had sent a new modem out to the island, but it turned out to be a hard-wired modem requiring an Ethernet cable, which we lacked, rather than a wireless modem that we had previously installed. Thus the only way to connect to the Internet was to reprogram the old wireless modem, which the technician on the other end of the line told us could be accomplished by connecting it to a computer – any computer.

We unearthed a five-year-old laptop that had long since been too slow to function in the modern world. But to get this computer to open, we now needed to retrieve an ancient password, which sent our hearts sinking. In recent years, we have taken to keeping lists of our passwords (not on a computer, where you need a password to get in) but say, on a smart phone or pasted inside the telephone closet. Five years ago, of course, you did not need an entire encyclopedia of passwords to access your information, so the particular “open says-me” for this computer had long since slipped overboard.

 Until, until, until… we finally hit on a magic word dredged up from the murk. Oh, happy day! We were about to be connected again, needing only to type in “myfairpoint” to log into their website, which would allow the technician, who had been waiting all this time (in Bangalore, India?) to reprogram the wireless modem and make us digitally relevant again. We got all the way to the “o” in fairpoint, to discover that the “o” key was dead, kaput, non-compos-mentis, no many how many times we mercilessly pounded the key as we tumbled back into the black void of digital-less space.

When we got back ashore, we hastily arranged a Skype call with one of our offspring in California, who is among the digerati. We related our hapless IT-Guy story, but all he really wanted to talk about was that other IT-Guy — the Edward Snowden one. What did we think of the NSA collecting all our private information? Well, we said, tentatively, it sounds like there were only 300 foreign telephone numbers that were monitored, so it did not sound too serious. That’s not the point, said our 30-year-old computer geek. Don’t you understand what this means? There will never be any privacy again if this does not stop.

One of the old persons at the other end of the Skype tube mentioned that he had once read of a survey done of random adults who were asked to share their worst secret. Something like 70 percent of them said their most embarrassing secret was that they peed in the shower. Even if your worst secrets could theoretically be known, what could be the harm in it for most of us, this old person asked?

This is BIG DATA, this son, the IT-Guy, responded firmly, which is something most people (us) cannot comprehend. It means that every call, every website, every tweet, every reddit or tumblr you ever visit can be recorded FOREVER. BIG DATA never goes away. It can be excavated whenever, wherever and by whomever for as long as you live and then for an eternity.

Imagine a world like that, he implored. Think of it like Harry Potter. There may be good wizards, but there are also bad wizards and the bad wizards will always use their superior knowledge to persecute those of us who are mostly good, but might have an unhappy shadow, a demon or skeleton we would like to store out of harm’s way. Think of J. Edgar Hoover who had a card file on every potential foe — and all his friends who might someday become a foe. Think of the power he wielded. Now C This is what Edward Snowden is trying to stop, he told us.

Hmmm… the old one said as he stared blankly into this IT-Guy’s dark vision future, maybe it is a good thing that we could not connect to the Internet out on the island….

Philip Conkling is the founder of the Island Institute. Additional writings are available at www.conklingassociates.com