Impact of pseudonym changes on geographic routing in VANETs

  • Authors:
  • Elmar Schoch;Frank Kargl;Tim Leinmüller;Stefan Schlott;Panos Papadimitratos

  • Affiliations:
  • Media Informatics Institute, Ulm University;Media Informatics Institute, Ulm University;DaimlerChrysler AG, Group Research;Media Informatics Institute, Ulm University;École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne

  • Venue:
  • ESAS'06 Proceedings of the Third European conference on Security and Privacy in Ad-Hoc and Sensor Networks
  • Year:
  • 2006

Quantified Score

Hi-index 0.00

Visualization

Abstract

Inter-vehicle communication is regarded as one of the major applications of mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs). In these so called vehicular ad hoc networks (VANETs) security and privacy are crucial factors for successful deployment. In a scenario, where each vehicle would have a unique identifier, eavesdroppers could easily accumulate location profiles. As a solution approach, several authors suggest using changeable pseudonyms as temporary vehicle identifiers. If a vehicle changes its pseudonym from time to time, long-term tracking can be avoided. However, as we show in this paper, changing identifiers has detrimental effects on routing efficiency and increases packet loss. So, designers of VANET systems need to aim for a balance between privacy protection on the one and performance on the other hand. The results of this paper provide advise on how to achieve this balance.