Enhancing privacy-preserving in vehicular cloud through an incentive-based strategy

Abstract

The literature has extensively explored vehicle ad hoc networks (VANETs) and vehicular clouds, with a common assumption in these studies being incorporating onboard units (OBUs) in vehicles. OBUs are used to collect and disseminate information between vehicles. Furthermore, numerous studies assume the presence of road infrastructure for communication. Implementing a vehicular cloud can play a vital role in aggregating data on events such as weather conditions, traffic information and accidents. This information is distributed to other vehicles, allowing drivers to make informed decisions and ensure safe driving practices. To protect privacy within the vehicular cloud, pseudonyms serve as a means of communication between vehicles and roadside units (RSU). Numerous existing approaches suggest more frequent updates to vehicle pseudonyms to reduce the likelihood of linking transmitted messages by vehicles. However, some of these strategies overlook situations where vehicle density is low, and vehicles have limited willingness to engage in the pseudonym-changing process. This article introduces an architecture that encourages vehicles to participate in the pseudonym-changing process to enhance vehicle privacy. This is achieved by issuing rewards to vehicles that can be used to access cloud services.