By HELEN KENNEDY 
Daily News Staff Writer 

High-tech Peeping Toms are training their lenses on neighbors, dorm mates and strangers, broadcasting the results over the Internet to a global army of voyeurs. 

All over the world, Web cameras are pointed out windows, filming the passing scene for the viewing pleasure of cybernauts. 

There are dozens in New York City alone. Next time you're skating at Rockefeller Center, strolling through Bryant Park or waiting for a light at the southeastern corner of 45th St. and Fifth Ave., wave. Someone from Norway, or maybe Peru, may be watching you. 

On the flip side, a growing army of exhibitionists are wiring their homes with the tiny cameras, allowing computer users worldwide to peek at them as they eat, sleep, work, undress, play air guitar, pick their noses or just stare into space. 

Voyeurism is the latest Internet rage, and technology is blurring the lines between public and private lives. 

"Everybody's got a little bit of a voyeur in them," said Lorraine Chu, who has a Web-connected camera trained on her desk at work and in her San Francisco Bay-area home, broadcasting her daily life to thousands of eager viewers. 

"People love to see how other people live," she said. "This is my 15 megabytes of fame." 

Sean Patrick Williams of Washington, whose Web viewers have seen him spill pizza toppings into his lap and pass out drunk, says he's a hit because he's not perfect. 

"People see a reflection of themselves," he said. "You watch TV or movies, and you see people wake up wearing makeup, looking perfect. I wake up and, well — it's not pretty. I think people find that refreshing." 

Williams said many of his 75,000 daily viewers are in Australia and Europe. 

"It seems extremely popular to watch me sleep," he said. "They're at work, they're stressed, and they flip over and watch me sleep. Some even send me bedsheets so they can see me sleep on them." 

Perhaps part of the appeal is that Williams, a buff 26-year-old, sleeps naked. 

Such Web cams — also called Net cams or live cams — are popping up everywhere. 

There is RoachCam, aimed at a bunch of truly revolting Madagascar hissing cockroaches in a tank in South Carolina, and FridgeCam, located in the refrigerator of a family in Sweden that goes on only when the door opens. 

And there's KelpCam, for those who want to see the seaweed in an exhibit at the Monterey Bay Museum. 

Every major New York tourist landmark — including the Brooklyn Bridge, Statue of Liberty and World Trade Center — has a camera pointed at it. There's one in Bryant Park and another on the 77th floor of the Empire State Building. 

Computer users can manipulate the Rockefeller Center cam, zooming in or moving it around. And Manhattan Transfer, the postproduction company that shows the world the hot-dog vendor on 45th St. and taxis zipping by on Fifth Ave., had a killer view of last week's hectic construction worker protest. 

Seeking something more soothing? The International Waterlily Society has two cameras trained on a pond near Portland, Ore. 

Eat your heart out, Monet. 

A virtual trip around the world is only 80 clicks away. 

Take a look inside a cafe on the Rue des Medicis in Paris or at the traffic conditions on Cape Cod's Sagamore Bridge. Look out the window of a real estate office at Nantucket's Main St. or at the mist drifting by Dublin's O'Connell St. Bridge. 

From KremlinCam to KarachiCam, the world is at your fingertips. 

However, kelp, roaches and pretty skylines have nothing on real people, and the perverts are having a field day. 

"The theme of our Web site is simple: young girls naked and lots of hidden cameras," claims one site, which charges $10 a month for "a front-row seat to the hottest live voyeur footage on the Internet." 

The site boasts 25 secret cameras placed in locker rooms, shower stalls, tanning salons and store changing rooms — offering grainy video of unsuspecting women taking off clothes. 

For obvious reasons, the site does not reveal in what parts of the country the cameras are placed. 

Not all spy cams are nefarious; several day care centers allow working parents to check in on their kids from their desks. 

Howard Besser, a professor at the University of California at Berkeley's School of Information Management, worries that the explosion of cameras soon will mean the end of privacy altogether. 

But he speculated that part of the appeal of Web cams is their novelty. He noted that in the early days of home photography, every snapshot was marveled over, no matter how dull the subject. 

"Web cams are popular now because you haven't seen it before — that'll die off," he said.