The advent of digital twins, which leverage the server's robust data-processing and storage capacities to manage vehicular tasks, effectively addresses the limitations of traditional Internet of Vehicles (IoV). However, the communication link between a vehicle and its digital twin remains open and insecure, necessitating the development of an Authenticated Key Agreement (AKA) scheme to secure this channel. Existing AKA schemes for Vehicular Digital Twin (VDT) fail to achieve post-quantum security, and the progression of quantum computing has intensified the urgency to establish post-quantum secure solutions. To address these shortcomings, we propose a lightweight, quantum-resistant three-party AKA scheme for VDT networks based on the Ring Learning With Errors (RLWE) computational problem. Our scheme enables one-round interaction with privacy preservation while ensuring the efficiency of the AKA protocol through its RLWE-based design. Additionally, our approach mitigates the risk of temporary key reuse during Gaussian sampling, thereby resisting newly discovered key reuse attacks targeting lattice-based key agreement schemes. Security proofs and analyses prove that the proposed scheme meets the fundamental security and privacy requirements of IoV. Furthermore, performance evaluations indicate that our scheme achieves post-quantum security with low computational overhead and energy consumption, making it compatible with quantum-resistant VDT communications.
Uneven socio-economic development in Russian regions stems not from some regions lagging behind the leaders, but from inefficient and fragmented use of internal potential. This study offers a methodological approach to inform strategic regional development using a comprehensive assessment of a region's potential. The analysis uses official statistical data from 2014 to 2023 and examines 87 indicators across 20 areas of regional development using classical analysis and synthesis. The proposed methodology assesses regional potential by accounting for neighbouring regions, population density, and interdependencies among indicators. An original matrix of inter-potential interactions is introduced to identify both limiting and enabling factors in regional economic performance. The methodology's validity is supported by expert evaluation. It is applied to regions of the Volga Federal Okrug, with a particular focus on Orenburg Oblast, which is notable for its combination of agriculture, industry, extractive sectors, and border location. Comparison of the results with the region's 2030 Development Strategy reveals gaps and priorities for investment, industry, R&D, and logistics. Analysis of regional growth drivers in relation to neighbouring regions also reveals potential for creating interregional specialized territories to enhance cooperation. The methodology has practical relevance for designing regional development strategies and policy programs. Due to the complexity of the calculations, digitalizing the evaluation algorithm is recommended. The findings can be of interest to state and municipal authorities.
Recently, the dynamic Proof of Work (PoW) mechanism has attracted considerable attention as a promising consensus mechanism for implementing blockchain in the Internet of Vehicles (IoV) due to its superior scalability, security, and efficiency. However, existing protocols fail to address two critical issues, i.e., how to precisely quantify the relationship between dynamic difficulty and trust value and how to assess the motivation for mining in relation to mining costs. Addressing these issues is crucial for developing a secure, efficient, and adaptable dynamic PoW mechanism. To address these issues, we propose a trust management algorithm that assesses the trustworthiness of Roadside Units (RSUs) that function as consensus or mining nodes. Based on the results of this trust evaluation, a difficulty adjustment algorithm rooted in the Principal-Agent game theory was designed to implement a dynamic PoW mechanism for IoV. This approach leads to a Nash equilibrium between vehicles and RSUs, thereby ensuring the security, efficiency, and stability of the IoV blockchain system. Simulations demonstrated that the proposed dynamic PoW consensus algorithm significantly improves consensus efficiency, enhances system security, and reduces computational costs, offering a robust solution for data sharing in IoV.
In recent years, vehicle announcement sharing has become increasingly important in intelligent transportation networks. However, the demand for secure communication and real-time responses necessitates the development of an efficient and confidential announcement sharing scheme. Existing solutions are constrained by inadequate privacy in inter-group sharing and lack of storage security consideration. To address these issues, we propose a blockchain-assisted secure announcement sharing scheme with controllable verifiable distributed security. This scheme constructs a re-encrypted group signature framework to achieve controlled confidentiality of announcements while ensuring efficient and secure sharing. Additionally, by designing a lightweight verification algorithm powered by the Inter Planetary File System (IPFS) and blockchain, the scheme ensures rapid verifiable secure both the initial and long-term storage of announcements. Security proof and analysis show that the proposed scheme offers enhanced security and robust privacy protection. Performance analysis demonstrates that, while providing better computational efficiency than other schemes, the proposed scheme maintains low communication overhead and smaller storage verification costs, outperforming existing announcement sharing schemes.
In vehicular ad hoc networks (VANETs), authentication and key agreement (AKA) protocols are crucial for establishing secure authentication and session keys for network communications, ensuring security for short-term vehicle interactions. However, traditional VANETs AKA schemes heavily rely on centralized trust architectures. This dependence raises significant concerns about overall system security and resilience, especially when these schemes operate over insecure wireless channels. Although recent studies have introduced decentralized architectures to mitigate this issue, a key limitation remains. These approaches typically assume synchronous network environments, which in practice limits their true decentralization capabilities in dynamic VANETs. To address these challenges, we propose a decentralized and asynchronous AKA scheme based on a consortium blockchain that enables the execution of the key agreement process in asynchronous VANETs environments. Furthermore, we employ lightweight cryptographic techniques combined with a Cuckoo filter to optimize computational efficiency, reduce communication overhead, and minimize on-chain storage costs. Security analyses and simulation experiments demonstrate that the proposed scheme delivers robust security and high performance under realistic network conditions.
