Abstract
Trust establishment in vehicular ad hoc networks (VANETs) is a challenging task due essentially to the high speed of vehicles, the long distances, and the network topology dynamics. Furthermore, applications context evolves quickly at the same time that the lifetime validity of data messages is short. In this paper, we set up a new distributed trust computing framework tailored to VANETs characteristics and aiming to solve the aforementioned challenges. The proposed framework is based on the investigation of the direct experience between neighboring vehicles without using any recommendation system. We also propose a tier-based messages dissemination technique in order to efficiently detect eavesdropped messages and fake events. Each vehicle checks the authenticity of the received data messages and maintains a trust value for each of its neighbors. We analytically model the trust metrics evolution of malicious vehicles. Extensive simulations are conducted to show the validity of the proposed model and evaluate the efficiency of the proposed trust computing framework.