Ring signature and improved multi-transaction mode consortium blockchain-based private information retrieval for privacy-preserving smart parking system

摘要

In big cities, the drivers face a major problem in identifying an optimal vacant parking space for their vehicles as the number of vehicles has rapidly grown over the recent years. This objective of determining the available parking space results in wastage of time, air pollution, and traffic congestion. Smart parking systems facilitate the driver to book parking slots and attain real-time parking information. However, the existing smart parking solutions necessitate the disclosure of sensitive information like desired destination from the vehicle drivers. Moreover, the current smart parking solutions are highly centralized, making them vulnerable for launching privacy breaches by service providers and resulting in the issues of single-point failure. In this paper, ring signature and improved multi-transaction mode consortium blockchain-based private information retrieval (RS-IMTMCB-PIR) scheme is proposed for privacy preserving in smart parking system. This RS-IMTMCB-PIR scheme initially utilizes an improved multi-transaction mode consortium blockchain constructed by different number of parking lot owners in order to achieve maximized parking offers based on the factor of availability, transparency, and security. It incorporates an improved private information retrieval approach for protecting the location privacy of drivers and secretly retrieving the offers of parking from the improved multi-transaction mode consortium blockchain. It further utilizes the benefits of ring signature for permitting the drivers in a potential anonymous authentication process that aids in available parking slot reservation. The simulation results of this proposed RS-IMTMCB-PIR scheme portrayed a predominant performance in ensuring maximized degree of drivers' privacy with reduced computation and communication overheads.