Thanks Carmel Yes I did know that ICQ had Israeli origins and used to use it myself back in the day but had forgotten all about it. Many thanks for the reminder and the other tips too. Best Sue -----Original Message----- From: Carmel L. Vaisman [mailto:carmelv@gmail.com] Sent: 05 March 2011 21:42 To: air-l@listserv.aoir.org; Sue Thomas Subject: Re: Seeking info about famous internet people *not* from North America Hi Sue, a few Israeli net celebs come to mind: Yossi Vardi is kind of our Bill Gates, father of many startups, but the most famous of them is his son's startup, Mirabillis (ICQ). Not many ppl know today that instant messaging was invented by a few Israeli boys and then sold to AOL. they're still a myth here. Ehud Tenenbaum is our Kevin Mittnick, the hacker nicknamed the Analyzer who broke into the Pentagon, NASA computers and many more, last decade. I think he works for the people he breached now after serving his sentence: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ehud_Tenenbaum Kutiman is a local musician and artist that became world famous for his YouTube mixing project: http://thru-you.com/#/intro/, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kutiman I dunno if meme stars count as famous internet people, but we have Tasha and Adi who started the "hey" lip-sync meme in 2005: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-_CSo1gOd48 and if memes count you'll find many meme stars outside North America. "Juan Mann" from the free hugs campaign of 2006 is Australian, for instance. Good Luck! Carmel Vaisman http://www.absolutecarmel.com Twitter @carmelva