Sebastian Friebe

DESCRIPTION

In future traffic systems, vehicles as well as the infrastructure are supposed to communicate with each other. This communication contains warnings about red traffic lights, position updates of other vehicles, or dynamic sheduling at crossroads.
To do so, all participants need a unique identifier so others know who send a message and to address participants directly. However, a simple solution for this problem with static identifiers is far from ideal for privacy protection. From a privacy standpoint, using many short lived pseudonyms are preferable. This avoids that a single participant can be tracked for a longer time, or can be recognized again when coming back to a crossroad later on. At the same time, discovering the real identity of a participant must be possible in cases of emergencies.

ASSIGNMENT

In this master thesis an approach should be developed that protects the privacy of the participants by providing temporary pseudonyms when required. Linking multiple pseudonyms of a participants or discovering the offline, long-term, identity of the participant should be avoided. However, it should be possible to determine the long-term identity in emergencies, e.g., after an accident.
To avoid a single trust anchor that can reveal pseudonyms at will, a decentralized approach based on blockchains and smart contracts would be preferable. In how far this is possible and which parts of the system might still require trust into single instances has to be analysed as part of the thesis.

PREREQUISITES

Basic knowledge in the areas of cryptography, blockchains, and smart contracts are useful.