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Tag: CyBlock Cloud

Google Geolocation Issues

Introduction

CyBlock Cloud utilizes gateways located in data centers in the U.S., U.K, and Canada. Users are provisioned on a proxy close to their geographical location to ensure the best performance as well as delivery of appropriate regional content.

This article describes how to resolve the possible problem of Google assigning an incorrect geolocation to your Google searches. If this happens, Google is detecting your egress IP address or the source IP address of your request incorrectly. This is an issue for any multiregional cloud provider as well, not only Wavecrest, and there seems to be no easy solution.

Issues

You may experience one of the following issues:

  • Your google.com home page does not match with your location. For example, this could be happening to you if you are in the U.S. but are being sent to the Google home page for Canada (www.google.ca).
  • The Google site is correct, but your search results are not relevant to your location, that is, results for the wrong city or region are being shown.

Solution

Wavecrest has extensively researched this issue and found it to be Google’s geolocation algorithm. This issue affects any cloud service vendor that covers customers across multiple geographical regions. We continue to communicate with Google, but so far they are unwilling to change their algorithm. We suggest the following:

  • If you are experiencing a geolocation error or do not want to use your local Google site, you can bookmark http://www.google.com/ncr. Anytime you visit this page, you will be redirected to google.com instead of the incorrect Google site or your local Google site.
  • Alternatively, if you have been redirected by google.com to another Google site (like google.ca), click the “Use Google.com” link in the bottom-right corner of the page to get to google.com. However, the suggestion above will produce better results.
  • If your search results are not relevant to your location, change your location on Google as follows:
Google Chrome
    • Go to www.google.com and perform a search.
    • Scroll to the bottom of the search results page. Your location will be displayed on the left side.
    • To update your location, click Use precise location.
    • Below the address bar, if a panel appears from the Lock icon indicating that www.google.com wants to know your location, click Allow. See https://support.google.com/websearch/answer/179386 for more information.
    • Reload the page, and Use precise location is replaced by Update location at the bottom of the page.
    • If you click the Lock icon next to the Web address, you will see that under Permissions, Location is set to Allowed by you (i.e., the “Always allow on this site” option is selected in the drop-down list). Google.com will be added as a Geolocation exception, i.e., this site will always use your exact location information.
    • To allow all sites to use your exact location automatically, change the Content settings in Chrome:
      • At the top right, click the Customize and control Google Chrome icon and then Settings.
      • At the bottom, click Show advanced settings.
      • Under Privacy, click the Content settings button.
      • In the dialog that appears, scroll down to the Location section. Select Allow all sites to track your physical location. See https://support.google.com/chrome/answer/142065 for more information.
Windows 10
    • Go to Settings – Privacy – Location.
    • Under Location, if you see “Location for this device is off,” click Change and set the slider to “On.” This sets the location service to on so that Windows, apps, and services can use your location.
    • Under General location, set the slider to “On” so that apps that cannot use your precise location can still use your general location, such as city, zip code, or region.
    • You can also set a default location so that Windows, apps, and services can use the default when a more exact location cannot be detected.
      • Under Default location, click Set default. Then click Set default location and enter your address. Close the Maps window.
    • To allow default apps to use your precise location, under Choose apps that can use your precise location, set the apps to “On.”
Microsoft Edge
    • Go to www.google.com and perform a search.
    • Scroll to the bottom of the search results page. Your location will be displayed on the left side.
    • To update your location, click Use precise location.
    • At the bottom of the page, click Yes to “Let google.com use your location.”
    • Click Yes to “Let Microsoft Edge access your precise location.”
    • Reload the page, and Use precise location is replaced by Update location at the bottom of the page.
Mozilla Firefox
    • Go to www.google.com and perform a search on Google.
    • Scroll to the bottom of the search results page. Your location will be displayed on the left side.
    • To update your location, click Use precise location.
    • Below the address bar, a panel appears from the Lock icon asking if you want to share your location with this site, google.com.
    • From the Share location drop-down list, select Always Share Location. Use precise location is replaced by Update location at the bottom of the page. If you click the Lock icon next to the Web address, you will see that under Permissions, Access Your Location is set to Allow.
  • Another option is to use a different search engine such as Yahoo or Bing. You will find that your search results match with your location.

Please note that the suggestions in this article reduce the likelihood that these issues will occur, but they may not completely resolve them and are not as a result of a Wavecrest issue.

If you need assistance, please contact Technical Support at (321) 953-5351, Ext. 4 or support@wavecrest.net.

How to interpret cloud report dates/times for your time zone

In Wavecrest reports, dates and times are displayed in several places, such as in the Report Request Parameters–Current Date/Time, Report Start Date/Time, and Report Stop Date/Time. In addition, in Audit Detail reports, all hits including visits have a date and time associated with each URL that is displayed.

Cloud Customers

For cloud customers who are using a CyBlock Cloud instance that is not located in their local time zone, the dates/times in reports are specific to the time zone set in your cloud account, that is, the time zone in which your Web activity is occurring.

For example, if you are in Pacific Time, running a User Audit Detail report for the selection, Previous 24 Hours, and going through central.cloud.cyblock.com which is in Central Time, the URLs in the report would have times of your local time if this time zone is set in your cloud account. So if the date is Sep 11 and your local time is 11:02 a.m., “Previous 24 Hours” would be Sep 10, 11:00:00 a.m. to Sep 11, 10:59:59 p.m. in Pacific Time, and the URL times would span this time period.

The dates and times in the report e-mail will also reflect the time zone set in your cloud account.

Hybrid Cloud Customers

For Hybrid cloud customers, reporting is based on your local CyBlock instance time. Reports will show all traffic as it occurred in the time zone of each of your cloud accounts for the same local CyBlock instance time. When running reports for all cloud accounts, managers can see traffic for all time zones at the same time and hour.

For example, if your local CyBlock instance time is Eastern Time, cloud Web activity is in Central Time and Mountain Time, and you are running a Site Analysis report for 10:00 a.m. for all configurations, the report will show 10:00 a.m. Central Time traffic and 10:00 a.m. Mountain Time traffic.

If you have any questions, please contact Technical Support at (321) 953-5351, Ext. 4 or support@wavecrest.net.

Setting up the Wavecrest certificate for cloud users

If you are a CyBlock Cloud customer, you probably want to allow your cloud users to access secure sites (https://) and need to inspect this HTTPS traffic to ensure that your network is protected from Web threats and to enforce your AUP. The SSL Inspection feature in CyBlock Cloud allows you to inspect this HTTPS activity, but requires that you install the Wavecrest root certificate on your cloud users’ browsers. If the Wavecrest root certificate is not installed in the browser, a certificate warning message will be issued that must be accepted in order to display your blocking message.

Another reason to install the Wavecrest root certificate is if using cookie authentication to confirm the identity of users accessing the Internet through your network. The cookie authentication logon page that is presented to your users is a secure page and is automatically inspected. Therefore, to avoid your users receiving a certificate error, install the certificate on your users’ browsers.

The certificate may be installed in the following ways:

  • Through the browser
  • Using Active Directory GPO
  • Using Microsoft Management Console

The Wavecrest Certificate Installation Guide provides instructions on installing the certificate using Internet Explorer/Google Chrome and Firefox, importing it using Active Directory, and installing it in Windows 7 Professional/Enterprise.

If you need assistance, please contact Technical Support at (321) 953-5351, Ext. 4 or support@wavecrest.net.