Skype: More opps to chat with strangers

You could call it penpals on steroids - random phone calls from anyone, anywhere, enabled by free Net telephony provider Skype. In a fun New York Times article illustrating this, Net pundit and former Grateful Dead lyricist John Perry Barlow got a call from a woman in Vietnam who just wanted to practice speaking English. "They spoke for a long time, exchanging text, photographs and Web addresses, and discussing everything from the state of Vietnam's economy to Ms. My's father's time in the army." The Times adds that Mr. Barlow's experience wasn't unique. "Skype users report unsolicited contacts every day, and contrary to such experiences with phone and email, the calls are often welcomed." Now, it's probably a lot safer for your child to talk with someone in Southeast Asia than someone within a 100-mile radius for two reasons: 1) ill-intentioned strangers probably don't try to establish relationships with children when it would cost a fortune to meet them in person, and 2) parents can hear when a child's chatting by phone, which sometimes means a higher awareness level than with silent online chat. A third might be that your kid would have to turn the random-call feature, called "Skype Me," on, not that it's hard to do. So this is yet another way kids can meet and get to know strangers. Just a heads-up. [Skype facts: it's the most popular and one of the first of the current-generation VoIP (voice-over Internet protocol) providers, having just passed the 100 million-downloads mark, according to The Register; it's totally free if both users use a headset and have its software on their PCs; it's cheap if you use a phone; and it's brought to you by the people who created and later sold the Kazaa file-sharing service.]