A Traceable Blockchain-Based Access Authentication System With Privacy Preservation in VANETs

Abstract

The vehicular ad-hoc networks (VANETs) is one of the most promising application in the communications of smart vehicles and the smart transportation systems. However, authentication and privacy of users are still two vital issues in VANETs. It is crucial to prevent internal vehicles from broadcasting the forged messages while preserving the privacy of vehicles against the tracking attack. Moreover, in the traditional mode, the transactional data storage provides no distributed and decentralized security, so that the third party initiates the dishonest behaviors possibly. In this paper, based on blockchain technique, we propose a traceable and decentralized the Internet of Vehicle system framework for communication among smart vehicles by employing of a secure access authentication scheme between vehicles and RoadSide Units (RSUs). On the one hand, this scheme allows that vehicles employ pseudonyms for Vehicle to Vehicle (V2V) and Vehicle to Infrastructure (V2I) communications anonymously in the non-fully trusted environment. On the other hand, the transparency of vehicles in authentication and announcement is preformed efficiently by the blockchain technology. In addition, the transaction information is tamper-resistant that provides the distributed and decentralized property for the different cloud servers. With the help of Certificate Authority (CA) and the RoadSide Units (RSUs), our proposal achieves the conditional privacy to trace the real identity of the malicious vehicle in the anonymous announcements as well. Finally, through the theoretical analysis and simulations, our scheme is able to construct a secure and decentralized system framework of VANETs with accountability and privacy preservation.

Keywords

• Blockchain-based
• privacy-preserving
• authentication
• traceability
• VANETs