How I Stopped Fretting and Learned to Love the Net

Are you a middle-aged member (preferably male) of corporate America yearning for a comprehensive guidebook to the conceptual foundations of the Internet and its seemingly interminable resources? Do you want to read about the lurid past of the Net and discern the direction of its evolution? If so, then Esther Dyson '72 has written a new Bible for you, alluringly entitled Release 2.0, A Design for Living in the Digital Age.

Under the guiding narrative of Dyson, once called "the most powerful woman in the Net-erati" by the New York Times Magazine, this glossy volume carries the reader through 11 chapters brimming with anecdotal evidence of the author's familiarity with the innermost workings of cyberspace, both as we know it and as Dyson predicts it shall be. Subjects range from the structure of the Net and its usefulness in binding citizens into communities, to the ever-present dilemma of governance and regulation within the electronic realm.

As both a personal vision and a design for living in a highly computerized and networked age, Release 2.0 is brimming with autobiographical details of the author's ascent in a largely male-dominated world of venture capitalists and upstart corporate analysts. Such reminiscing remains appropriate in the first chapter, where Dyson speaks of "How [she] got the story and learned to love markets." Her attempts to find a vocational niche in Moscow and her participation on the board of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, an online civil liberties organization, require less of the conversational tone used in discussing her childhood dinners with Nobel Laureates. However, the same informal atmosphere lingers throughout her writing, even as she moves forward to discuss more global issues of content control and privacy on the Internet.

Most strikingly prophetic are the second, third and fourth chapters of Dyson's book. Detailing the impact of digital networks upon communities, work and education, these three chapters present the reader with an unfailing air of optimism for the development and integration of the Internet within public and private domains. Dyson views the Net as a means of linking individuals and allowing citizens to seek employment and students to expand their horizons, though she does concede that certain risks--breaches of privacy, increased insulation from reality--will always exist. Neither is one of her visions the total dehumanization of interactions between users, for she recognizes that "[y]ou just can't share a sunset, a hot tub, or a hot meal over the Net."

Beyond the pseudo-Utopian predictions of far-reaching Internet usage lie the technical specifications of Dyson's treatise. A Harvard graduate with a degree in economics who subsequently worked as a reporter for Forbes magazine and followed high-tech stocks as a securities analyst on Wall Street, Dyson possesses an impressive amount of practical experience with which to substantiate her conceptions. One of the most innovative suggestions she makes concerns the mass mailings of junk e-mail sent through the Net. Her plan to curb this "spamming" involves the use of "sender-pays" e-mail, wherein the recipient would be able to charge the sender before accepting the mail (or to forgive the fee, so that access is not restricted to the wealthy alone). Here Dyson's "love [of] markets" reveals itself yet again: her descriptions of global agencies and investor/consumer protection on the Internet provide further evidence of the economic bases behind her vision of a digitalized society.

Those who read Release 2.0 with the expectation of learning about Dyson's dealings with other prominent figures of the cyberspace Beltway will find satisfaction in the anecdote preceding Chapter 6 which concerns the nature of intellectual property on the Internet. Though the event detailed bears little apparent relation to a concept as abstract as intellectual possession, the specifics of Dyson's meeting with Bill Gates, Vice-President Al Gore '69, and 99 high-level CEOs at Gates's own home--including a captivating description of a glassblower hired as entertainment for the occasion--eventually lead to the topic of singularity of experience, which follows the subject of intellectual property and its protection. This combination of nonchalant discussion and highly authoritative philosophizing pervades the latter chapters of the book.

Privacy, content control, anonymity and security form the foundations of the latter half of Release 2.0. With these four issues constantly weighing on the minds of Internet users and overseers, one is not surprised to find that these four chapters hold the most measured, fact-filled arguments of the entire book. Dyson includes the names of regulatory agencies already active in private households and, to a lesser extent, in the public arena. Names like CYBERsitter, Net Shepherd, and TRUSTe provide evidence of the viability of the Internet as a secure environment for children and adults alike. Unfortunately, the main bias of Release 2.0 reveals itself in these chapters. Dyson, who previously urged the reader to remember when "[you had] just turned thirteen" and "you tried to get around the school's blocking software to look at the Playboy site," extends the male-oriented focus of her book with questions like, "Should you have? Should you wear your trousers rolled?" Elevated as her status may be within the world of high-tech information systems, Dyson still caters to the male majority who dominates her profession.

Release 2.0 is steeped in Dyson's personal experience and authority. As a result, even the most jargon-filled paragraphs fall within the understanding of the common reader when augmented by Dyson's conversational sidenotes and proposals. Her intent to elucidate the workings and promising features of the Internet is clearly stated and reiterated from an economic standpoint throughout the book. Though the target audience seems to be limited to male members of the corporate world, almost anyone can appreciate the tidbits of advice that constitute the book's conclusion. "Trust but verify." "Be generous." "Always make new mistakes." Equally applicable in real life and in cyberspace, the basic tenets of Esther Dyson's design for living in a digital society enliven and illuminate Release 2.0.