Secure and efficient distributed pseudonym generation in VANET

A RSU-aided distributed method for pseudonym generation was put forward. Firstly, vehicle users generated their own temporary public keys. When a vehicle passed through RSU, its temporary public key was blindly signed by RSU. After the vehicle obtained a signature for its temporary public key, it combined the temporary public key and the signature together to make up a vehicle pseudonym (temporary public key and its signature by RSU). A vehicle communicated with the surrounding nodes through pseudonym. The advantage of this method is that RSU could share some workload of certificate authority (CA) in VANET. It improves system efficiency and strengthens its scalability. Meanwhile, since the private key which generates vehicle's pseudonym is in the RSU, but not in the vehicle. It is more difficult for adversary to extract private key from system. As a result, the security of system is enhanced.