The open-source Ghostscript [1] can convert simple PDFs to text, while keeping the layout. I doubt it will handle some of the more complicated cases outlined in the article though.
I use it quite successfully to turn my bank statements into text, which can then be further processed.
It does say, "All EC2 host infrastructure has been updated with these new protections, and no customer action is required at the infrastructure level."
"Meanwhile, we suggest using the stronger security and isolation properties of EC2 instances to separate any untrusted workloads." As I read it, it is talking about running code within your instance - if you have untrusted workloads, rather run them in a separate instance, so as not to encounter issues like this cross-process.
Not sure how you can compare your own servers to s3 - s3 has redundancy built in that can survive the loss of 2 data centers. I'm pretty sure it would be more expensive to roll your own version of that...
(via https://www.tug.org/texshowcase/)