Thank you for visiting "The Navigator – Live." Today's chat ended at 3 p.m.

My guest was Esther Dyson, chairman of EDventure Holdings, which publishes Release 1.0, a monthly newsletter about the digital world. Recently named one of the 50 most powerful women in American business by Fortune Magazine, she's at the very eye of the CompuStorm. She is that rare person who makes sense out of nonsense. She sponsors the annual PC Forum, gathering spot for the digerati. Amongst other things, she answered questions about her book Release 2.1, a Design for Living in the Digital Age. You can find her in cyberspace at www.edventure.com.  

"The Navigator – Live" appears each Thursday from 2 p.m. to 3 p.m. Eastern time. It's a live, moderated discussion offering washingtonpost.com users the chance to talk directly to intriguing and sometimes unusual guests who are shaping the digital world. "The Navigator" appears in The Washington Post print edition every Thursday. You can read past columns by following this link.

Linton Weeks: Hello, everybody. News is breaking out all around us, but we are still very delighted to have Esther as our guest. Welcome. Let's get to the first question.

washington: what do you think are the most powerful, unavailable developments in software and technology at this moment, if you can say.

Esther Dyson: well, the thing I'd really like to see is better maps of the Internet, so you can see how things are related, where you are, etc., instead of just a list of titles and sddresses.

Linton Weeks: What are you doing in Moscow? Can you give us a description of everyday life in Russia?

Esther Dyson: right now I am in Moscow (it's 10 pm) in order to attend a board meeting tomorrow. I am also going to see the administrator of the .ru domain, as part of my new job as interim chairman of ICANN, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers. I'll be meeting various other (mostly software companies) about strategy and investments, and on Saturday I'll be going to a friend's dacha for her birthday party.

Linton Weeks: You're on the board of directors of the Electronic Frontier Foundation. What issues are on the front burner for the EFF?

Esther Dyson: front-burner issues for EFF are privacy, and one of the main means to protect it, which is encryption technology (like what I am using to send these messages to you right now -- although hostesly there's nothing secret in here....

Another big issue is freedom of speech, which is constantly under attack - though notin the WPost, thank you!

Linton Weeks: How do you think computers should be used in schools?

Esther Dyson: I think computers should be used in schools they way they are at work - as a tool to help you do whatever it is you're tyring to do - find info, communicate with someone, calculate something, manage data. One great use is for teacheres and parents to communicate by e-mail; it's not just about tools for kids.

washington dc: is privacy dead?

Esther Dyson: no, privacy is not dead. But you have to make up your own mind about it. For example, I have no home phone. That's my personal decision. Other people will make their own. If you really want to keep a secret, you shouldn't tell anyone.

But at teh same time, about commercial privacy, you can look for things like the TRUSTe label, which gives you assurance that the site will post its data-collection and use polices, and then observe them.

Denver CO: What news of the Iraqi strikes are you receiving in Moscow?

Esther Dyson: I'm watchnig NTV (Independent TV) right now (between questions!), and they're showing an anti-US demonstration outside the US embassy in Moscow. ANd of course they're expalining the context, pretty objectively.

Washington, DC: Are you concerned about the Y2K problem? Are you taking any personal precautions?

Esther Dyson: I'm concerned about it, but it's like a public health problem; *everyone* has to take part and not sneeze in the public places, wash their hands, etc. My own company has checked to see if we have any problems, but our set-up is pretty simple.

Overall, I don't plan to go to the mountains, because I think many of the problems will be apparent well before December 31, 1999. We'll live through it, but there will be millions of little problems that will interact and make big messes.

Linton Weeks: Esther, what do you hear about official/popular Russian response to the Iraqi situation and the pending impeachment vote?

Esther Dyson: AS I said, therre's a lot about Iraq, not much about Clinton.

Linton Weeks: Do you use the Internet for other things besides e-mail?

Esther Dyson: Well, I use it for online chats....

Mostly, for e-mail; I get enough to keep me fully employed. Occasionally I go to check out some news, or the weather for some place I'm going to.

And maybe I should do some online shopping, since Iwon't be back in the US until December 24!

Linton Weeks: My colleagues at washingtonpost.com are curious about how you are connected? Modem? Wireless? Pray tell?

Esther Dyson: Actually, it's pretty cool. I'm sitting in the same living room (private house) where a few years ago it was hard to make a voice call through to New York. Right now, I'm connected through a 3Com Ethernet card to a Breezenet Pro Series box with a wireless connection to a local box (in the house) which has an ISDN to the local (Sovam Teleport, part of Global Telesystems) ISP. It's great. (I was on 14.4 dial-up from my hotel in Prague, so I'm really happy right now! Also, one of my calls from Prage was to Budapest because the local POP was busy, and it cost $150!)

Washington, DC: I've heard that Internet usage has leveled off in the United States? Is that true? Do you think there will soon come a time when the Internet's influence begins to wane?

Esther Dyson: I don't believe Internet use has leveled off in the US.... Just ask AOL! It's not doubling anymore, that's true, but it's still spreading rapidly.

I wouldn't say the *Net* has influence; people have influence *through* the Net, and I think that will continue to increase for some time.

Linton Weeks: We're half-way through the hour. Please keep those questions coming. I'm going to take a sip of iced tea and I hope Esther has some hot tea to keep her warm.

Rosslyn: Who are the most influential women in the computer world, besides yourself?

Esther Dyson: Ann WInblad, Hummer Winblad (VC)
Carol bartz, ceo of Autodesk
Jeanette Symons, cto and founder of Ascend
Geraldine Laybourne, Oxygen (formerly w Nickelodoen)
Judy Estrin, cto of 3Com
Pam Alexander, PR guy
Mary Meeker, Morgan Stanley, analyst/investment banker
Christy Jones, PC Order
Daphne Kis, EDventure Holdings (my business partner!)
Jill Barad, Mattel (just bought the Learning Company)
...and many more!

Washington DC: Who's going to win the battle for news on the Web? What strategic advice would you give, oh, say, newspapers?

Esther Dyson: Good reporters are going to win the battle... It's not going to be all newspapers or all online services. It's how well either kind of outfit does the job.

Newspapers ...to make money, they should do classifieds. To be great papers, they should do news.

(Yes, there's a conflict there. Great newspapers need great owners who care about more than short-term profits. Example: Kay Graham - and Don Graham....)

Linton Weeks: What exactly is the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority?

Esther Dyson: The IANA was a US government entity in charge of managing things like the assignment of generic domain names, IP addresses, and other Internet plumbing. The USG, and especially Ira Magaziner, decided that these functions should be handled by a private, nonprofit, *international* coproration, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names & Numbers. I am the interim chairman of it, and I am learning a lot about technical deatils, and about internet and international politics! It is extermely intersting, though if we do our job right the public will probably never notice.

praha: ester did you have a chance to stop by the terminal bar in praha?! you would have not gotten a 14.4 connex to humgary there!!

Esther Dyson: No, but I did meet with the chief techy of the company that runs it. i should have gone there to meet him!

What can I say??

BTW, I have to report, watching the Energizer Bunny in Russian is quite an experience!

wash dc: What is ICANN?

Esther Dyson: ICANN is what I just menitoned, the successor to IANA.

We do Internet plumbing! There are actually serious issues, like domain names and trademark disputes, and whether there should be additional "generic Top-Level Domains" beyond .com, org, .net.... such as .web or .per, to mention two suggestions.... Hey y'all: What's your opinion? One of our tasks is to understand pobulic opinion on such issues.

Washington DC: Is the increased speed at which people find things out (about not just international news, but about the new restaurant in town) going to fundamentally change our lives?

Esther Dyson: It's going to make us feel more rushed, but we'll be used to it. What it really means is that we'll need to make more decisions and turn down more opportunities... It puts more pressure on us to manage our own lives rather than leave it to fate, the town employer, a husband, a small community. Now you have to *choose* your community/ies, and you're responsible for the choices you make.

Naperville, Illinois: Do you or the ICANN have any idea who the "Internet Community" REALLY is ?

If so...who is it ?

Jim Fleming
Unir Corporation

Esther Dyson: A good question, because we are a membership organization and one of our first tasks is to figure out who our members should be. Individuals, orgs representing individuals, anyone with an e-mail address, anyone willing to pay $10????

As for communities, the Net is clearly not a single community, but a platform for *many* communities.

Silver Spring Maryland: You're in Moscow now. Russia is a huge nuclear-armed country undergoing a profound crisis. How can we Americns keep on top of developments in the Internet-age? What resources are available that you would recommend? One example might be Johnson's Russia List, a daily e-mail newsletter.

Esther Dyson: Johnson's Russia List is terrific, but probably too much for all but the committed. If you want to solve the problem, there are lots of things to do. Read papers and relevant sites. Contribute to and *work with* orgs devoted to helping out in the region in a positive way (e.g. the Eurasia FOundation, www.eurasia.org), tell your Congresspeople that we cannot survive as an isolationist power.

Linton Weeks: What will PC Forum be like in March? What do you predict will be the cutting-edge presentations?

Esther Dyson: Well, believe it or not, and sorry for being so reverential, but one big thing is that we've got Kay Graham speaking about the role of journalism...

also, Barry Diller, some people talking about Open Source (a business model competing with the MS approach rather than a company), .. Joel Klein of the DOJ.

The theme is Back to REality: Where's the Net ROI? I.e., what really works afer the hype is over? What business models? How does the Net transform advertising (with Shelly Lazarus of Ogilvy & Mather)? Portals inside out with Tim Koogle of Yahoo! and Peter Neupert of Drugstore.com. Bob Lessin of Wit Capital.... should be a lot of fun! Thanks for asking..

Linton Weeks: As an every-day swimmer, how do you keep your skin, and your hair, from drying out?

Esther Dyson: Well, so much for privacy...but this is stuff I don't care about, and my choice is to tell:

I put conditioner on unde my bathing cap, use UltraSwim shampoo (against chlorine), and use lots of lotion....

Linton Weeks: Are you writing another book? What projects are you focusing on now?

Esther Dyson: 3 basic things:
ICANN
trying to raise $40 million for a fund to invest in RUssian software start-ups (pretty cool developers here)
EDventure Holdings, my own company, and its PC Forum and Release 1.0 newsletter'
...and then a number of companies whose boards I sit on, here and elsewhere in Europe and the US

Arlington: What websites do you think are the most advanced on the web today?

Esther Dyson: It depends how you measure.

FedEx and its package tracking are great. Amazon and its wealth of relveant info. Delta and its up-to-date info about *my* airline miles (more interesting to me than pages and pages of borchureware).

Note that I did not mention anyone's whizzy graphics.

I'm more interested in info than in entertainment.

Fairfield, Conn: We hear quite a bit about the "last mile" problem here in the US; what are the prospects for that area across Europe and Russia?

Esther Dyson: The last mile is a lot worse outside the US> That is, the last mile (or kilometer) to a consumer's home. In the US it may be low-bandwidth, but at least local calls are usually free. In much of the world, they're charged by the minute, which makes Net access (among other things) very expensive.

On the other hand, lots of ISDN in Germany, for example, but at high rates. Mobile phones are much more broadly used in Europe, partly because relatively they are not that much more expensive than fxed-line service.

Linton Weeks: At what age should kids be connected to the Internet?

Esther Dyson: When they're ready.

(It's the same answer to
when they should go to church or temple, pick their own movies, read grown-up books, go to the city on their own, buy their own clothes, get a job. The parents are usually the best judge, and there's certainly no one age. Of course, some people *never* grow up...

Linton Weeks: What would you focus on if you had just a little more time?

Esther Dyson: I'd read some good novels!

Linton Weeks: What do you think of the Pentagon's recent decision to remove a lot of its information--sensitive and not-so-sensitive--from the Internet? Some of the information, including mailing lists, personnel directories and certain maps were made public by federal law.

Esther Dyson: THis doesn't seem to make a lot of sense, but I don't know the details. If it's available by law, then it should be available on the Net.


Personnel directories concerns personal privacy, and probably that aw should be changed (or reinterpreted!).

Linton Weeks: How has your notion of the value of online communities evolved over the years?

Esther Dyson: pretty much the same.. The importnat element of communities is the people in them, not the Net. But as I said earlier, on teh Net they are more voluntary; you *choose* which ones to join, rather than depending on geography.

But there will also be a lot of local communities using the Net to enhance their communications; that's why the first ones were called bulletin boards.

Linton Weeks: Esther, thanks. We ran a little past the hour, but I really appreciate you being on the show. We look forward to learning of your next endeavors. Thanks to you and to all the fine folks at washingtonpost.com and to all who sent in questions. I'm taking a couple of weeks off. Happy Holidays to all and to all a good night.

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