Blockchain-Based Efficient and Traceable Data Sharing Scheme for Vehicular Networks

Vehicular networks are essential for supporting intelligent transportation systems, including traffic data sharing and collaborative processing in modern cities. However, issues such as communication security and privacy-preserving pose significant challenges for shared data. While blockchain-based privacy-preserving authentication solutions have been successfully implemented to realize vehicle communication security and protect data privacy, most of these schemes are not directly applicable in real-world scenarios (e.g., blockchain-based solutions face issues such as high authentication overhead, excessive interactions, unreliable shared data, and inconsistent data quality). To address these challenges, we propose a blockchain-based reputation system for vehicular networks. Specifically, we combine ring signatures with a reputation mechanism to ensure the reliability of shared data. The security analysis demonstrates that our scheme meets the necessary security and privacy requirements. Performance analysis further shows that our scheme outperforms existing solutions in terms of communication and computational overhead. Extensive experimental results confirm that this scheme is well-suited for deployment in vehicular networks applications.