Let Your Reputation Precede You

Although Vehicular Networks are still on the drawing board, the recent announcement by the NHTSA that they will begin working on regulations for V2V (Vehicle-to- Vehicle) communication has spurred concerns that more and more personal data may be unduly disseminated as we drive our cars. We examine a scenario where vehicles use anonymous certificates, provided by a central authority, and do not divulge their position (e.g., for the purpose of accident prevention), but merely exchange contextual traffic information (congestion, roadworks, accidents in the area...). The reliability of such information is corroborated by the vehicle reputation, assigned by a Central Controller (CC). The mechanisms that lead to the forming of vehicle reputation are outside the scope of this paper. We are instead interested in designing a system for the robust dissemination of reputation and in understanding its implications on user privacy.