Skype – the Perils of

If like me you use Skype for long-distance calls between friends and close colleagues, you may be interested in this.

Happened yesterday.

I got an email from a friend “Let’s chat”, so I fired up Skype and dialed her. We had not been on the phone for one minute when my land-line rang (see “ Skype - an Expert's View ”).

“That’s my supper-date, can I call you back?” I asked my friend. Sure. 10 p.m. tonight.

So at 10:15 p.m. I loaded Skype, dialed my friend and was greeted by a loud blast of a Perry Mason rerun.

What’s going on?

Linda (not her real name) had left her computer on and Skype running.

When I dialed her through Skype, Skype at her end picked up the phone.

Skype can’t distinguish between Raymond Burr’s voice and Linda’s (Oops!) and from Skype’s point of view we are having a real conversation, although my end consists of screaming “Linda! SKYPE!!” at the top of my voice.

We finally sort that out – I am to call the next day – and I hear Linda walk back to the couch saying "That was Chris in Toronto; He was trying to SKYPE me ...".

At this point I figure that I don’t want to hear what goes on between Linda and he husband on the couch when they are watching a rerun of a Perry Mason show, so I click “END” in Skype and we are done.

Now consider this: Skype can be used as an eaves-dropping tool. If you leave Skype on and loaded, you could have an unwanted listener.

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