Private reputation retrieval in public – a privacy‐aware announcement scheme for VANETs

An announcement scheme is a system that facilitates vehicles to broadcast road‐related information in vehicular ad hoc networks (VANETs) in order to improve road safety and efficiency. Here, the authors propose a new cryptographic primitive for public updating of reputation score based on the Boneh–Boyen–Shacham short group signature scheme. This allows private reputation score retrieval without a secure channel. Using this, the authors devise a privacy‐aware announcement scheme using reputation systems which is reliable, auditable, and robust.