The modern data economy is built on sharing data. However, sharing data can
be an expensive and risky endeavour. Existing sharing systems like Distributed
File Systems provide full read, write, and execute Role-based Access Control
(RBAC) for sharing data, but can be expensive and difficult to scale. Likewise
such systems operate on a binary access model for their data, either a user can
read all the data or read none of the data. This approach is not necessary for
a more read-only oriented data landscape, and one where data contains many
dimensions that represent a risk if overshared. In order to encourage users to
share data and smooth out the process of accessing such data a new approach is
needed. This new approach must simplify the RBAC of older DFS approaches to
something more read-only and something that integrates redaction for user
protections. To accomplish this we present CageCoach, a simple sharing-oriented
Distributed Cryptographic File System (DCFS). CageCoach leverages the
simplicity and speed of basic HTTP, linked data concepts, and automatic
redaction systems to facilitate safe and easy sharing of user data. The
implementation of CageCoach is available at
https://github.umn.edu/CARPE415/CageCoach