Beware of Bots Bearing Messages

IF YOU GET an instant message from someone with an unfamiliar screen name in the near future, you might want to think twice before getting emotionally invested in the conversation.

That's because you may be talking with Chatting AIM Bot, a free service that lets anyone play a devious practical joke on a friend, in which an artificially intelligent AOL instant message, or AIM, bot carries on an innocuous, 10-minute conversation before finally lowering the boom and informing the unwitting human at the other end they've been had.