Unable to restore iPad 2: unknown error occurred (3194)

My company had an employee leave. He had a company iPad 2 which he turned in, however there is a passcode set on it and he will not tell us what the code is because he doesn't want us to see whatever personal data he has on the device. I have tried to restore the iPad to factory defaults with iTunes using both recovery mode and DFU mode and both ways after iTunes uncompressed the software and tries to restore the device I get an error:

The iPad "iPad" could not be restored. An unknown error occurred (3194).

I found another article suggesting that this means there is a communications problem with the Apple update server (gs.apple.com), however if I go to https://gs.apple.com the page loads fine so I can communicate with the server. My firewall is not blocking any ports outbound to the Internet and I have never had this problem before (I have done this same procedure many times with iPhones, but this is the first time with an iPad). I also tried using my home computer and received the same error, so it would seem that two computers on different networks should not have the same problem if it is a network problem.

I don't know what iOS version is on the iPad but it is not iOS 7. My computer is running iTunes 11.0.4.4 on Windows 7 x64 SP1.

Any suggestions on how I can fix this problem?