A Framework for Secure and Efficient Data Acquisition in Vehicular Ad Hoc Networks

Intervehicular communication lies at the core of a number of industry and academic research initiatives that aim at enhancing the safety and efficiency of transportation systems. Vehicular ad hoc networks (VANETs) enable vehicles to communicate with each other and with roadside units (RSUs). Service-oriented vehicular networks are special types of VANETs that support diverse infrastructure-based commercial services, including Internet access, real-time traffic management, video streaming, and content distribution. Many forms of attacks against service-oriented VANETs that attempt to threaten their security have emerged. The success of data acquisition and delivery systems depends on their ability to defend against the different types of security and privacy attacks that exist in service-oriented VANETs. This paper introduces a system that takes advantage of the RSUs that are connected to the Internet and that provide various types of information to VANET users. We provide a suite of novel security and privacy mechanisms in our proposed system and evaluate its performance using the ns2 software. We show, by comparing its results to those of another system, its feasibility and efficiency.