Using Amazon MechanicalTurk if location is not US? - amazon-web-services

Amazon Mechanical Turk is a mass-micro outsourcing API, where you can get lots's of small simple tasks (e.g."Is there a shop in this image") done relatively cheaply (e.g. 0.10 U$ per image).
Amazon seems to assume that this service is mostly of interest to US companies. This results in difficulties if you want to use the service (as an "Requester"): for example there is no easy way of funding your Account without an US Bank account.
Can somebody share experiences of using the Service from outside the US?

Since Amazon doesn't let outside US access yet, you'll need to either:
Wait for Amazon to open it up to outside US, might be a long wait.
Get a good friend in the US to open a PO Box for you then use an online US bank to create an account. If you don't start a corporation or other legal business, they will need to provide their US drivers license to Amazon too.
Use a 3rd party provider like HIT-Builder who will let you post on Mechanical Turk using their US Amazon account.

I think they recently changed their rules - I am based in Australia, and as recently as 6 months ago I was unable to use Mechanical Turk. That recently changed and now I am able to post jobs on the service.

You may want to take a look at TurkPrime labs which offers this as a service to non-US based researchers.

The problem you have is that to actually be able to add funds to your account, you need to have a US billing address. If you can get round that issue, then it all works fine.

Related

Google Cloud Platform: Mining cryptocurrencies

I received an email indicating that my Google Cloud Project have been suspended because I was supposedly mining cryptocurrencies.
My project is a tool like a Calculator and that issue surely isn't possible.
What could be happen?
In order to create a function I hired a programmer on UpWork and give him access to the GCP.
Well, it seems this developer has abused our trust and did something wrong.
What can I do?
Now the project is suspended and any section I try to go in the form "Appeal" appears.
I appealed but I have to wait Google to reply.
How can I check if my project have been used for these bad usages?
I want to cut services the developer could be used or so.
Unfortunately, you must wait for Google’s reply.
AS a recommendation you could review this information to determine if it is intended, Cryptocurrency mining is often an indication of the use of fraudulent accounts and payment instruments, and requires verification in order to mine cryptocurrency in the Cloud Security Help Center.
If you believe your project has been compromised, I recommend that you secure all your instances, which may require uninstalling and then reinstalling your project, you could follow the steps.
To better protect your organization from misconfiguration and access the best of Google's threat detection, you may consider enabling Security Command Center (SCC) for your organization. To learn more about SCC visit.

Problem setting up Google Maps API Billing Acount

I hope you are all very well. I'm developing a web platform for an assignment and I need to use the Maps JavaScript API. As you know, you are required to provide a credit card number to set up your billing account, unfortunately I'm from Venezuela and credit cards are not something that you can see every day, first I tried using a false credit card number, it didn't work, then I managed to find someone who had a credit card, but it seems like the credit limits in my country are not even high enough for Google to test that the credit card actually works. I've tried sending requests to the API but all of them have been rejected and I haven't been able to find any ways around this problem. It's very embarrassing to ask for this, but if someone could provide me with an API key that works, I'd very more than grateful, I can pay for using the API Key, my only problem is that I don't count with a credit card (I could pay with cryptocurrencies if that were an option), and even if I had a credit card, my country is not included in the list of countries that can be chosen when creating a new billing account. Thanks in advance, it's a very important assignment and I really need some help.
I believe that you can use a PayPal account. For Google Cloud you can prepay an account, maybe you can do the same with Google Maps.
A shared API key will probably get blocked quickly by Google, so do not try to go that route.
Another idea is to join a local Google Developer Group, someone might be able to help you. Also, sometimes developer/educational credits are available. This is worth your time and can help you with contacts as you develop your skills.
Google Developer Groups
Link to the Caracas GDG

Firebase migration for China [duplicate]

I am now developing a social application. But recently I noticed that Firebase is blocked in China. So I want to make sure whether firebase can be used in China?
* EDIT 24 January 2020 *
Some of the information here might be out of date.
Firebase has a China service at https://firebase.google.cn/ which is not blocked in the PRC. (Thanks to #c-an for bringing this up.)
That said, *.google.com and *.googleapis.com are still blocked in China. I'll change/update this as I get more information.
Original Answer
For now Firebase is blocked and can't be used in China, along with other Google services, because the PRC has blocked all URIs with *.google.com and *.googleapis.com.
This also means, for example, that the Play app store can't be accessed from China. If you don't know what's going on between Google and the PRC, here's a primer.
Also, according to Chinese law, user data of Chinese citizens must be stored inside of the PRC. You might be able to get away with only addressing this once you have a significant number of users, but the trend has been for the CCP to crack down more and more on foreign information, even busting VPNs and declaring them illegal despite complaints of academics who say that they need, you know, real information.
As we're now in the run-up to the 19th Party Congress this autumn, we can expect the situation to get worse before it gets better. Maybe 2018 will leave room for relaxation?
For now, very sadly, forget anything Google in China, and be prepared to store user data of PRC citizens on servers located inside the Great Firewall. Also be prepared for seemingly random degradations of your service within China, or to be blocked altogether, along with these other blocked services.
Update 2017-11-23: The 19th Party Congress has come and gone and, if anything, Google services look less likely than ever to become available in China. The great firewall is likely to continue to be strengthened as the Chinese Communist Party extends its role into corporations, and foreign firms are generally disadvantaged.
Update 2018-08-05: Google plans to open a censored version of its search in China, according to leaked documents. It seems reasonable to assume that if a censored Google Search becomes available in the PRC, then Firebase and other Google Cloud products may as well. The censored search plan, code-named Dragonfly, has reportedly been in the works since December 2017, possibly a result of meetings that month between Google CEO Sundar Pichai and an unnamed top Chinese official when they met at the World Internet Conference in Wuzhen, China, where PRC General Secretary and President Xi Jinping gave a speech.
Update 2018-12-23: It appears that Google's Project Dragonfly is now on hold if not outright abandoned. This implies that the outlook for Firebase in China has worsened.
You can build your own Rest API server outside of China, and make the server talks to Firebase rest api endpoints of Realtime db or Authentication, https://firebase.google.com/docs/reference/rest/database. So you web app talks to your rest api server (accessible from China), and your rest api server talks to Firebase.
The answer is NO :
Using a huge part of Firebase services, I contacted the support, this is the answer :
I'm glad you are considering Firebase for your project. However, in
accordance with current U.S. policies, it is not possible to use
Firebase from within certain countries. For more information about
these restrictions, please refer to the U.S. Department of the
Treasury website. The current list is of blocked countries is listed
here. If you have end-users located within China, it's quite difficult
to access Firebase there since the use of Firebase requires Google
Play Services, which most of the devices in China don't have. We
understand that access to our products has been problematic from
within mainland China. We believe it may have been caused by
networking conditions in China, rather than Google's own services.
Since access to services is determined by the respective country's
government and they don't report to Google, the Transparency Report is
the most authoritative it can be.
I just tested and I am able to access my realtime database hosted on the Singapore region in China mainland. No need to modify anything. Whatever works overseas, works in China. Tested in Beijing.
Facing the same problem, if you are in china, install Astrill VPN and change from openweb to StealthVPN, connect to a server like USA for china one and login to firebase. It will work successfully.

Is it good option to host Rhohecode on Amazon EC2

I am thinking of hosting Rhodecode for my version control of all my codes on Amazon EC2. Is that the good idea.
if that works i may also host Confluence on there as well
How much resources will it consume.
I am not able to calculate the CPUS thing. Dont know how that works
If i will only be pushing code one per day . do my cpu will be billed for 1 hour for month
RhodeCode is hungry for ressources since it’s really doing a lot of heavy work. EC2 I would not recommend for this since you will need to order at least a large instance which costs est. $175 per month!
Also other cloud providers are not really cheaper and you don’t even have a highly available setup, yet. For a professional setup you would need to budget at least $300-$400 per month on dedicated hardware.
The most cost-efficient and quick solution would be to use the new Hosted RhodeCode service at rhodecode.com.
Currently the site is in private beta but you can request an invite and try it out for free. After private beta, the first users will be free of charge and any further user will cost a low USD amount per month.
Disclaimer: I am CEO at RhodeCode and my co-founder Marcin is the creator of RhodeCode SCM. You can contact me at anytime for any question through Twitter #RhodeCode or email (support # ourdomain).

AWS Package for AdMob Like Site

I am working on something similar to AdMob and was planning to use Amazon Web Services this time. I would like to use EC2 instance running Linux on it.
What do you think a AdMob like site has utilization for a month and what's the best configured instance for it be?
It would use HTTPS for which I have already bought SSL certificate. I am more concerned about utilization and data transfer in and out. Is there a way to calculate usage per user?
Your question is really open, but I have a solution :
Look at the AWS Architecture Center :
http://aws.amazon.com/architecture/
There are plenty of typical architecture.
You have an adserving architecture here :
http://d36cz9buwru1tt.cloudfront.net/architecturecenter/AWS_ac_ra_adserving_06.pdf
Hope this will help you.
[To calculate usage per user, it's not easy. You can save all your user's actions, and public actions, but it will cost you usage costs. The best way is to evaluate it for the next months, with last months datas.]