Privacy protection among drivers in vehicle-to-vehicle communication networks

The privacy of future drivers will dispute with the evolvement of vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) communication networks. V2V networks are a subclass of mobile ad hoc networks (MANET). Future vehicles will collaborate for safe and efficient driving using wireless communications. Vehicles will exchange safety-critical information without a control from a centralized basestation or infrastructure. However, a centralized infrastructure, presented as a management entity or a certificate authority (CA), is necessary to establish and provide trust and secure communication protocols among drivers. This can be achieved using the public key infrastructure (PKI) and digital certificates. The CA provides a unique certificate for each driver. The disadvantage of unique certificates is that the identity of drivers can be revealed to other drivers, and the movements and locations the drivers visit can also be traced by other drivers. In this paper, we present an approach to provide privacy among drivers in V2V communication networks. Our approach is based on the concept of group signatures. Drivers, who are members of V2V networks, are organized into groups. Each group has a public key. Members of a group share their group's public key. In addition, each member has its own private key provided by the CA. In our proposed solution, we achieve privacy by allowing members to generate and change their own set of public keys frequently using the Digital Signature Standard (DSS). In our approach the CA is not required to authenticate the frequently generated public keys, and hence vehicles exchange the safety-critical information without requiring a control from the CA. When a group member changes its own public keys, it is hard to trace the movements and locations that member visits. A group member signs messages using the shared group public key, its own private key, and its own frequently-changed public keys. The recipients of a signed message can verify the correctness of the signature without identifying the signer. In case of a dispute and malicious activities, the identity of the member who signed the disputed message can be revealed only by the CA.