How secure are Amazon AWS Access keys?

I kind of agree with the accepted answer, but there is an easy way to do what you want.

You need to use Amazon IAM to create a user that can only read files (it does not really matter, but they at least need read only to the bucket that you are dealing with). Then use THAT users AWS ID and secret to generate a download link.

This does not open up your whole bucket, as to see the whole bucket the person needs the AWSID of this IAM 'reader' user, plus their secret key. You still need to construct time limited URLs.

You can use the IAM console to create a user like that in a few mins. You only get one chance to get the secret key - at the time you make the user (or if you rotate his keys).

That should do it. This AWSID has no access to anything, and is not linked to you.

In general Amazon now recommends that your primary AWSID is not used 'for anything'. You create users with permissions in IAM, then use those codes. This allows for a lot of security flexibility. You can turn off your read only user with a simple action in the IAM console.

The Access Key ID is not a secret and does not need protecting.

In fact, you can give expiring URLs to random strangers if you want them to access an S3 object. They can see the access key in that URL, but can't do anything with it that you have not authorized.

reference: http://docs.amazonwebservices.com/AWSSecurityCredentials/1.0/AboutAWSCredentials.html#AccessKeys