Secure Data Sharing for Consortium Blockchain-Enabled Vehicular Social Networks

Data sharing in Vehicular Social Networks (VSNs) is an essential road service that assists vehicle driving and promotes intelligent transportation applications. In VSNs, vehicles regularly collect and upload valuable data to share with other vehicles. Data encryption can be employed during data uploading and sharing to prevent malicious tampering and privacy disclosure. However, existing data-sharing schemes lack security, have high overhead in obtaining decrypted data, and show low trust in the central authority controlling the entire network. To facilitate data sharing in VSNs, this paper proposes a new scheme using consortium blockchain to realize secure data sharing. Nodes in the blockchain invoke smart contracts and implement the location-based Speculative Byzantine Fault Tolerance (LSBFT) to accomplish data-sharing transactions among vehicles. The scheme not only ensures the security of vehicle information but also protects the privacy of the shared data. Security analysis demonstrates that the proposed scheme can resist attacks and has shown transaction fairness, data confidentiality, non-repudiation, and traceability. Simulation results show that the scheme has higher sharing efficiency and less time to reach a consensus in the data storage process.

I. Introduction

In Recent years, the number of vehicles on the road has increased rapidly, putting significant pressure on the traffic situation in several areas worldwide. To improve road mobility and meet the needs of vehicle interaction, Vehicular Ad Hoc Networks (VANETs) have been proposed to provide a Peer-to-Peer (P2P) data transmission service for vehicles within a specific range [1]. With the rapid development of P2P communications, the influence of social behavior also gradually rises in many network systems, including VANETs. Vehicular Social Networks (VSNs) are developed by incorporating social behaviors of vehicular communications into VANETs [2]. VSNs manifest primarily in vehicles interacting with each other with the same destination or similar interests [3]. In VSNs, vehicles can exchange all types of information with each other through Roadside Units (RSUs), including traffic jams, road maintenance, accidents, weather warnings, and roadside construction [4]. By sharing information about roadside constructions, vehicles can find their destination more efficiently; by sharing road conditions, vehicles can avoid unnecessary traffic accidents and plan better travel routes.