Cyber-Physical Transactions: A Method for Securing VANETs with Blockchains

Abstract

Blockchains are used to perform state agreement in a distributed system. However, there is no way to validate off-chain actions, such as physical actions, in the current architecture. This paper proposes a new blockchain architecture which features locally physically-verified transactions. From this new architecture, this paper presents a protocol for securing vehicular ad-hoc networks (VANETs) without the need to constantly communicate with roadside units (RSUs) or other infrastructure components. However, issues such as privacy in VANETs and Blockchains are left to future work. This paper shows the results from simulations of the current system in order to note its weaknesses. In particular, this paper can be used as a benchmark to show that ideas such as Proof-of-Work and full blockchain validation cannot work in a purely peer-to-peer VANET.