Bouncing An Ip

what do you mean by bouncing? do you mean that they are using an IRC bouncer to connect to an IRC server or do you mean that they are using proxies?

one way to check if the person is using a proxy is to try to connect to the IP as if it was a proxy. you will need to know what port the proxy is listening on. to do this you may have to run some port scans (which are sometimes illegal). an easier way would be to search google for their IP. it may show up on some proxy lists. if it does you know that the IP is/was used as a proxy before.

IRC bouncers may be harder to detect. you can search for the host name (e.g. i.own.you.example.com) on google to see if it shows up on any shell account’s domains. of course if they are using a “cool” hostname they must be trying to conseal their true IP (most likely for security reasons).

unless they are behind a restrictive firewall they will have ports open. i don’t suggest you connect to any non-public (secure) proxies. most IRC networks will do a port scan on the IP to check for unsecure proxies. if the IP is in the OPM it has already been scaned and verified that it is a public proxy. if they can connect to undernet‘s IRC network using their so called IP, they are probably pretty secure and are most likely not using a proxy. dnsstuff may also be able to help you. they will show you who owns what IP/domain.

in the end you may not know if they are connecting through a “bouncer”. the easiest way to figure it out would be to just ask them. 🙂