Token Based Trust Computation in VANET

In vehicular ad hoc network or VANET, the safety related messages broadcast by vehicles is used by other vehicles to make critical decisions. This may trap a vehicle taking wrong decision with dire consequences and authenticated vehicles or malicious vehicles may also broadcast wrong messages. This necessitates those messages of vehicles to be trusted after authentication process of vehicles, especially in the absence of centralized authority. In this paper, token based trust computation based on network connectivity duration of vehicles in VANET is proposed. The proposed technique is based on travelling time association among vehicles or network connectivity of vehicle at the time of driving on the road. We present simulations of the proposed technique that verify its correctness and reliability in the presence of infrastructure and absence of infrastructure. Results show that the efficacy of the proposed scheme and makes it viable for secure and lightweight trusted communication in a VANET.