Privacy-Preserving Blockchain-Based Registration Scheme for AV Parking System

Autonomous Vehicles (AV) are a prime example of how innovation and automation are at the forefront of growing technology trends. The concern of parking systems is becoming apparent as research into ways to increase the efficiency and cost-effectiveness of AV continues. To ward against various internet attackers and secure users\u27 sensitive information, an efficient AV parking system must have powerful user privacy and cyber security capabilities. In my work, I present a blockchain-based privacy registration system for AV parking systems that meets the following criteria. The proposed scheme incorporates k-Nearest Neighbor (kNN) - an efficient and lightweight algorithm - for encrypting and matching available parking slots of participating AV parking lots with the parking spaces of interest to AV users using vector matrices. Additionally, the incorporated blockchain eliminates the need for financial third parties and ensures secure payment fairness and transparency between the AV and parking lot. The proposed approach is also shown to be robust and efficient, according to our security and privacy analysis. Keywords: Blockchain, Parking Reservation, Autonomous Vehicles (AV), k-Nearest Neighbor (kNN), Parking Cloud Server (PCS

A Privacy Framework for Decentralized Applications using Blockchains and Zero Knowledge Proofs

With the increasing interest in connected vehicles along with electrification opportunities, there is an ongoing effort to automate the charging process of electric vehicles (EVs) through their capabilities to communicate with the infrastructure and each other. However, charging EVs takes time and thus in-advance scheduling is needed. As this process is done frequently due to limited mileage of EVs, it may expose the locations and charging pattern of the EV to the service providers, raising privacy concerns for their users. Nevertheless, the EV still needs to be authenticated to charging providers, which means some information will need to be provided anyway. While there have been many studies to address the problem of privacy-preserving authentication for vehicular networks, such solutions will be void if charging payments are made through traditional means. In this thesis, we tackle this problem by utilizing distributed applications enabled by Blockchain and smart contracts. We adapt zero-knowledge proofs to Blockchain for enabling privacy-preserving authentication while removing the need for a central authority. We introduce two approaches, one using a token-based mechanism and another utilizing the Pederson Commitment scheme to realize anonymous authentication. We also describe a protocol for the whole process which includes scheduling and charging operations. The evaluation of the proposed approaches indicates that the overhead of this process is affordable to enable real-time charging operations for connected EVs

A Survey on Privacy-preserving Blockchain Systems (PPBS) and A Novel PPBS-based Framework for Smart Agriculture

Blockchain and smart contracts have seen significant application over the last decade, revolutionising many industries, including cryptocurrency, finance and banking, and supply chain management. In many cases, however, the transparency provided potentially comes at the cost of privacy. Blockchain does have potential uses to increase privacy-preservation. This paper outlines the current state of privacy preservation utilising Blockchain and Smart Contracts, as applied to a number of fields and problem domains. It provides a background of blockchain, outlines the challenges in blockchain as they relate to privacy, and then classifies into areas in which this paradigm can be applied to increase or protect privacy. These areas are cryptocurrency, data management and storage, e-voting, the Internet of Things, and smart agriculture. This work then proposes PPSAF, a new privacy-preserving framework designed explicitly for the issues that are present in smart agriculture. Finally, this work outlines future directions of research in areas combining future technologies, privacy-preservation and blockchain