Enhancing Privacy and Reducing Traffic Levels in Vehicular Ad-Hoc Networks

Vehicular Ad Hoc Networks is a kind of special wireless ad hoc network, which has the characteristics of high node mobility and fast topology changes. The Vehicular Networks can provide wide variety of services, ranges from safety and crash avoidance to internet access and multimedia applications. Attacking and misusing such network could cause destructive consequences. It is therefore necessary to integrate security requirements into the design of VANETs and defend VANET systems against misbehaviour, in order to ensure correct and smooth operations of the network. In this paper, we propose a security system for VANETs to achieve privacy desired by vehicles and traceability required by law enforcement authorities, in addition to satisfying fundamental security requirements including authentication, nonrepudiation, message integrity, and confidentiality. Moreover, we propose a privacy-preserving defense technique for network authorities to handle misbehaviour in VANET access, considering the challenge that privacy provides avenue for misbehaviour. The proposed system employs an identity based cryptosystem where certificates are not needed for authentication. We show the fulfilment and feasibility of our system with respect to the security goals and efficiency.