A framework for evaluating pseudonym strategies in vehicular ad-hoc networks

Abstract

The standard approach to privacy-friendly authentication in vehicular ad-hoc networks is the use of pseudonym certificates. The level of location privacy users can enjoy under the threat of an attacker depends on the attacker's coverage and strategy as well as on the users' strategy for changing their pseudonym certificates. With this paper, we propose a generic framework for evaluation and comparison of different pseudonym change strategies with respect to the privacy level they provide under the threat of a realistic, local, passive attacker. To illustrate the applicability of this framework, we propose a new tracking strategy that achieves unprecedented success in vehicle tracking and thus lowers the achievable location privacy significantly. We use this attacker as a means to evaluate different pseudonym change strategies and highlight the need for more research in this direction.