Local Self-Organization with Strong Privacy Protection

We present a cryptographic approach to local self-organization in ad hoc systems such as virtual traffic lights. The cryptographic layer enables conversion of randomized self-organization into a deterministic setting in which it is not only possible to detect misconduct, but also prove it against third parties at a later time. Our main contribution is providing a high level of privacy protection - provable unlinkability. Thereby the proposed scheme fulfills the highest requirements of privacy-by-design principles introduced recently in Europe. This has been achieved despite that for traditional methods there is a strong trade-off between authentication strength and privacy.