Connected vehicle communication with improved misbehavior processing

Abstract

A form of the invention is applicable for use in conjunction with a security credential management system that produces and manages pseudonym digital certificates issued to vehicles and used by vehicles to establish trust in vehicle-to-vehicle communications, the security credential management system including a pseudonym certificate authority processor entity which issues pseudonym digital certificates to vehicles, a registration authority processor entity that validates, processes and forwards requests for pseudonym digital certificates to the pseudonym certificate authority processor entity, and a misbehavior authority processor entity that receives misbehavior reports from reporter vehicles that include information about the reporter vehicles and suspect misbehaving vehicles and is responsible for producing a list of revoked credentials; the pseudonym certificate processor entity and registration authority processor entity participating in producing linkage values to be contained within the issued pseudonym digital certificates, the linkage values being derived ultimately, using a one-way function, from linkage seeds thereby enabling, in predetermined circumstances, at least some of the certificates containing linkage values derived from a given linkage seed to be revoked. A method is set forth for improving operation of the security credential management system, including the following steps: in conjunction with deriving the linkage values from the linkage seeds, additionally producing encrypted linkage maps that relate, in encrypted form, linkage values with linkage seeds from which they are derived; determining particular linkage values deemed to be of interest based at least in part on information derived from misbehavior reports; and determining linkage seeds associated with the particular linkage values utilizing decryptions of the encrypted linkage maps.