What alternative interface does the author propose we use to securely exchange credentials?

If you read the linked post you'll see that at the time I suggested using XenStore to pass credentials to the OS kernel. Obviously a different approach would be needed with Nitro but if anything it would be easier now.

Once the kernel had them they could be exposed to applications via a synthetic filesystem which, crucially, can have ownership and permissions set on it.

I'm absolutely not arguing against IAM Roles for EC2. I'm arguing that they picked the worst possible interface over which to transmit those role credentials.

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daniel-levin an hour ago | parent [-]

Before the AI craze, there were plans to allow guests to cleave off an AWS-managed enclave and expose IMDS to only that enclave [0]. No creds would ever be visible to the guest. The enclave would function as a signing oracle. The exact interface was being bikeshod before the project was shelved in the name of geNAi lEaDeRsHiP.

[0] 86a7b126fea03dd57e6a3c9c9b7951b5318d33029cef0547ff441862174682f5 is the sha256 of the shelved project’s name

	▲	cperciva an hour ago \| parent [-]
		Right, I've got 19 years of NDAs so I try to be careful about what I talk about publicly...