Apple has sold about 250 million tunes from its iTunes Music Store and 10 million iPods. With the release of updated iPod models, Apple has launched a new iPod ad campaign in different national and international magazines, billboards and in the Internet. The new set of iPod ad features a variety of vibrant colors and design schemes with a black silhouetted figure of a person dancing with or simply enjoying an iPod. Cropped versions of these iPod ads can also be seen in updated Apple iPod web pages.

The new style is very different and colorful compared to the usual simple, white advertising they are popular of in the past. The colorful and silhouetted iPod ad campaign of Apple makes the white iPod earphones very recognizable.

An iPod ad is being run by 3 a mobile operator in the United Kingdom. It is the first ever 3G mobile video ad campaign for the Apple iPod. The iPod ad runs for 14 seconds that features the ever famous silhouetted dancers from the brand’s campaign concept.

iPod ad has become very popular indeed that in the Simpsons episode entitled “Thank God, It’s Doomsday,” Homer Simpson noticed in the Gospel for Less shop this iPod type of ad.

On the other hand, the copying of the idea has gone wild as Apple threatens to sue Music Channel Fuse over their new ad campaign that looks just like the iPod ad campaigns. Music Channel Fuse and its owner Cablevision’s Rainbow Media are threatened by Apple’s lawyers with a lawsuit unless the music channel stops the campaign.

In the similar campaign, figures of people in silhouette are watching while television with the colorful background. The campaign may mirror iPod ad campaign but Fuse takes the idea to a very different direction with one of their ad versions showed a man apparently masturbating while one showed a man doing a beer bong.

Rapper Eminem and Music group Black Eyed Peas also rode with the sucess of iPod ad campaign’s bandwagon, as the former was featured in a version of an iPod ad rapping and appearing on screen.

Also, the latter and their song “Hey Mama” from the album “Elephunk” became more popular after the song was used in another iPod ad campaign. The song was selected for the iPod television ad campaign by Apple and the creative team at TWBA Chiat Day. They thought the song was appealing and would definitely attract the attention of the viewers.

Apple ad is also reported lately to be included within iTunes soon. The testing advertisements are sure to lure advertisers interested in reaching million of iTunes users. But, many users are not excited about this because they have been used to an Apple ad free iTunes. As much as the Apple ad will appear only on the lower left corner of the iTunes Library, this can still prove to be risky.

iPod ad in iPod pages, posters, magazines, and billboards have been popping up all over key cities around the world. This also proves that Apple is aggressive with this new iPod ad push.

As a matter of fact, Business 2.0 has included the U2 silhouette iPod ad campaign in its 2005 Smart List. The annual tip of the hat to the brightest minds in business of this magazine has given their nods to Apple in its unique idea of advertising iPod.

The iPod ad was a collaboration of lead singer Bono of U2 and Apple CEO Steve Jobs. They happen to be long time friends who worked closely for this iPod ad campaign. They both contributed to the ad campaign and their efforts in advertising iPod paid of quite well. At the same time, Apple’s iTunes Music Store made the exclusive release of U2′s How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb.

With the success of the iPod campaign, the album also hit the charts for weeks after its debut in November 2005.

The exchange of information in Internet is made by the “client – server” model. A client sends a request (what files he needs) and a server sends a reply (required files). For close cooperation (full understanding) between a client and a server the client sends additional information about itself: a version and a name of an operating system, configuration of a browser (including its name and version) etc. This information can be necessary for the server in order to know which web-page should be given (open) to the client. There are different variants of web-pages for different configurations of browsers. However, as long as web-pages do not usually depend on browsers, it makes sense to hide this information from the web-server.

What your browser transmits to a web-server:
a name and a version of an operating system
a name and a version of a browser
configuration of a browser (display resolution, color depth, java / javascript support, …)
IP-address of a client
Other information

The most important part of such information (and absolutely needless for a web-server) is information about IP-address. Using your IP it is possible to know about you the following:
a country where you are from
a city
your provider?s name and e-mail
your physical address

Information, transmitted by a client to a server is available (accessible) for a server as environment variables. Every information unit is a value of some variable. If any information unit is not transmitted, then corresponding variable will be empty (its value will be undetermined).

These are some environment variables:

REMOTE_ADDR ? IP address of a client

HTTP_VIA ? if it is not empty, then a proxy is used. Value is an address (or several addresses) of a proxy server, this variable is added by a proxy server itself if you use one.

HTTP_X_FORWARDED_FOR ? if it is not empty, then a proxy is used. Value is a real IP address of a client (your IP), this variable is also added by a proxy server if you use one.

HTTP_ACCEPT_LANGUAGE ? what language is used in browser (what language a page should be displayed in)

HTTP_USER_AGENT ? so called “a user?s agent”. For all browsers this is Mozilla. Furthermore, browser?s name and version (e.g. MSIE 5.5) and an operating system (e.g. Windows 98) is also mentioned here.

HTTP_HOST ? is a web server?s name

This is a small part of environment variables. In fact there are much more of them (DOCUMENT_ROOT, HTTP_ACCEPT_ENCODING, HTTP_CACHE_CONTROL, HTTP_CONNECTION, SERVER_ADDR, SERVER_SOFTWARE, SERVER_PROTOCOL, …). Their quantity can depend on settings of both a server and a client.

These are examples of variable values:

REMOTE_ADDR = 194.85.1.1
HTTP_ACCEPT_LANGUAGE = ru
HTTP_USER_AGENT = Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 5.0; Windows 98)
HTTP_HOST = www.webserver.ru
HTTP_VIA = 194.85.1.1 (Squid/2.4.STABLE7)
HTTP_X_FORWARDED_FOR = 194.115.5.5

Anonymity at work in Internet is determined by what environment variables “hide” from a web-server.

If a proxy server is not used, then environment variables look in the following way:

REMOTE_ADDR = your IP
HTTP_VIA = not determined
HTTP_X_FORWARDED_FOR = not determined

According to how environment variables “hided” by proxy servers, there are several types of proxies
Transparent Proxies

They do not hide information about your IP address:

REMOTE_ADDR = proxy IP
HTTP_VIA = proxy IP
HTTP_X_FORWARDED_FOR = your IP

The function of such proxy servers is not the improvement of your anonymity in Internet. Their purpose is information cashing, organization of joint access to Internet of several computers, etc.
Anonymous Proxies

All proxy servers, that hide a client?s IP address in any way are called anonymous proxies

Simple Anonymous Proxies

These proxy servers do not hide a fact that a proxy is used, however they replace your IP with its own:
REMOTE_ADDR = proxy IP
HTTP_VIA = proxy IP
HTTP_X_FORWARDED_FOR = proxy IP

These proxies are the most widespread among other anonymous proxy servers.

Distorting Proxies

As well as simple anonymous proxy servers these proxies do not hide the fact that a proxy server is used. However a client?s IP address (your IP address) is replaced with another (arbitrary, random) IP:

REMOTE_ADDR = proxy IP
HTTP_VIA = proxy IP
HTTP_X_FORWARDED_FOR = random IP address
High Anonymity Proxies

These proxy servers are also called “high anonymity proxy”. In contrast to other types of anonymity proxy servers they hide a fact of using a proxy:

REMOTE_ADDR = proxy IP
HTTP_VIA = not determined
HTTP_X_FORWARDED_FOR = not determined

That means that values of variables are the same as if proxy is not used, with the exception of one very important thing ? proxy IP is used instead of your IP address.
Summary

Depending on purposes there are transparent and anonymity proxies. However, remember, using proxy servers you hide only your IP from a web-server, but other information (about browser configuration) is accessible!