A Peer-to-Peer Approach to Digital Key Sharing for Vehicle Access Control

Modern automobiles use a variety of key-based access control methods to restrict use of the vehicle to authorized persons only. These keys are normally either a physical object, a static piece of secret knowledge such as a PIN code, or a newer form of server-based key sharing via a smartphone. Each of these methods have several disadvantages including significant security issues. This paper describes a new approach to digital key sharing for vehicle access that overcomes the limitations of current methods. Cryptographic operations based on Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) are used to provide a high level of security and the method presented avoids the need for the vehicle to communicate with a remote server, thus allowing for various operations to be performed using only local, peer-to-peer connectivity.