Bounce, often abbreviated as BNC, is used to relay traffic and connections in computer networks. Using a bouncer allows a user to hide the original source of his connection, providing privacy as well as providing the possibility of routing traffic through a specific location. A bouncer can also be used to hide the true target that a user connects to. This should not be confused with e-mail, which may redirect or "bounce" back to the sender if the recipient's mailbox is full. A computer network is a system for communication between computers. ... Privacy is the ability of an individual or group to keep their lives and personal affairs out of public view, or to stop information about themselves from becoming known to people other than those whom they choose to give the information. ... Wikipedia does not yet have an article with this exact name. ... Wikipedia does not yet have an article with this exact name. ...

IRC use

One common usage is over Internet Relay Chat (IRC) via programs like psyBNC running on remote servers. In such an environment, where it is very easy to ascertain a user's IP address a BNC may help to hide the original connection source, as well as providing the opportunity for fun "vhosts" or "vanity hosts". The use of a vhost does not conceal the connection any better, but merely adds an amusing statement as the hostname. Internet Relay Chat (IRC) is a form of instant communication over the Internet. ... psyBNC is an easy-to-use, multi-user IRC bouncer with many features. ... In information technology, a server is a computer system that provides services to other computing systems—called clients—over a network. ... An IP address (Internet Protocol address) is a unique number that devices use in order to identify and communicate with each other on a computer network utilizing the Internet Protocol standard (IP). ...

A bouncer may also remain connected to an IRC server in the event the client should disconnect from the Internet. Often times state changes are tracked so that they may be relayed to the client upon reconnection. Some implementations opt to store all messages sent across the network that the client would have normally received, and send them upon the clients reconnection; this is often considered to be much too resource dependent for commercial hosting services to provide. Other logging features and bot like functions may be included with various implementations but are not standard. An IRC bot performing a simple task. ...

Example:

User A logs onto IRC directly and appears as USER!user@127.0.0.1

User A logs onto IRC indirectly through a bnc and appears as USER!user@user.is.the.best.net

Note: user.is.the.best.net is a fictional example, and in this context it would resolve to the IP address, or hostname/vhost of the BNC.

FTP use

BNCs are also often used for the FTP protocol, again to either hide the user and server from each other and also to route traffic through a specific location. FTP bouncers can be divided in two different categories, entry and traffic. Entry bouncer acts as a gateway to the server, but it doesn't hide the existence of the actual server. Entry bouncers, like cubnc can be used in multi-server setup for easy access to each server and load balancing. This removes the need to select which FTP server to login to, when trying to access the server farm. FTP or file transfer protocol is a commonly used protocol for exchanging files over any network that supports the TCP/IP protocol (such as the Internet or an intranet). ... In information technology, a server is a computer system that provides services to other computing systems—called clients—over a network. ... In telecommunications, the term gateway has the following meanings: In a communications network, a network node equipped for interfacing with another network that uses different protocols. ... In computing, load balancing is a technique (usually performanced by load balancers) to spread work between many computers, processes, computers, disks or other resources in order to get optimal resource utilization and decrease computing time. ... A typical server farm. ...

Traffic bouncers relay traffic through the host they are installed on, and when used, it appears as the bouncer is actually the FTP server thus hiding the real location of the server completely. Multiple traffic bouncers can be installed parallel, in order to balance traffic load across different links. Most elaborate bouncers can even bounce secure SSL/TLS connections. Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) and Transport Layer Security (TLS), its successor, are cryptographic protocols which provide secure communications on the Internet. ...

See also

• psyBNC
• Proxy
• Open proxy

psyBNC is an easy-to-use, multi-user IRC bouncer with many features. ... A proxy server is a computer that offers a computer network service to allow clients to make indirect network connections to other network services. ... An open proxy is a proxy server which is accessible by any Internet user. ...

External links

IRC Bouncers

• BNC
• shroudBNC (a modular IRC bouncer with web-interface, supports Tcl scripting and SSL)
• ezbounce (another feature-rich IRC bouncer)
• muh (a popular IRC bouncer)
• bip (a small IRC bouncer with SSL and backlog support)
• miau (a late-2002 fork of muh, with more features)
• JBouncer A Java IRC Bouncer
• Night Light IRC Bouncer written in C, run on Windows and Unix

FTP Bouncers // Tcl (originally from Tool Command Language, but nonetheless conventionally rendered as Tcl rather than TCL; and pronounced like tickle) is a scripting language created by John Ousterhout. ...

• cubnc