Quote:
Originally Posted by rebarnmom
We tried the IP address for the store, that just takes me to the store, which I already can do. I can't get into the place I need to be to download/ purchase any ebooks. The tech rep said I may need to talk to a programmer or someone in charge of the servers.  |
I guess I don't understand. And, I'm pretty sure that is because you don't understand how the internet and http work. That's fine, most PC users don't. But, it is hard to discuss techinical stuff like this, espesially via a third party.
The Sony eBook store is nothing more than a web site that is accessed via the Sony eBook Library software. It communicates via http to the store just like your web browser does. In order to set the filters to not filter out content from the store, it sounds like they need the IP address or addresses that the store uses. There is no reason to talk to the Sony programmers to get this though. All this information is exposed right on your PC and via the internet DNS protocol.
DNS is like a phone book for the internet. It converts a friendly name like "ebookstore.sony.com" into and IP address like 74.122.34.212. It sounds like net guard for performance reasons wants to block using IP address rather than the friendly name. Probably for performance reasons. They don't want to have to be doing DNS lookups for all the traffic that passes throught the filters.
Using a tool like fiddler2 which I have mentioned here before allows you to snif at the traffic that is happening between your PC and the Sony server. This will show you all the places that the software is connecting to, what is being sent and what the responses recieved are.
Of course, NetGuard should be able to do this to. They should be able to monitor your traffic and open up communication to the IP addresses that the Sony software is talking to. I am very confused as to why they can't do this. But, it sounds like the tech support people are not really tech support and more like customer service people. They only understand the basic end user features on the net filter.
It also seems to me that you should have control over it. You should be able to login to some web site and disable the filters temporarily while you are using the Sony book store, then turn them back on. Since you are at the computer you know your kids are safe.
Personally, I dislike nanny type software just for this reason. You never know what stuff you want to do is going to be blocked. I prefer to use education and monitoring to keep my kids safe on the internet.
Anyway... I wish you luck how ever you decided to persue this.
BOb