Peer Reviewed Journal via three different mandatory reviewing processes, since 2006, and, from September 2020, a fourth mandatory peer-editing has been added.
In any VANET, security and privacy are the two fundamental issues.
Obtaining efficient security in vehicular communication is essential
without compromising privacy-preserving mechanisms. Designing a
suitable protocol for VANET by having these two issues in mind is
challenging because efficiency, unlinkablity and traceability are the
three qualities having contradictions between them. In this paper, we
introduce an efficient Reusable Pseudo-id Distribution (RPD)
scheme. The Trusted Authority (TA) designating the Road Side
Units (RSUs) to generate n reusable pseudo ids and distribute them to
the On Board Units (OBUs) on request characterizes the proposed
protocol. RSUs issue the aggregated hashes of all its valid pseudo-ids
along with a symmetric shared key and a particular pseudo-id to each
vehicle that enters into its coverage range. Through this the
certificates attached to the messages can be eliminated and thus
resulting in a significantly reduced packet size. The same anonymous
keys can then be re-distributed by the RSUs episodically to other
vehicles. We analyze the proposed protocol extensively to
demonstrate its merits and efficiency.