TACB: Traceable Anonymous Credentials with Batch Verification for Universal Internet of Vehicles

The Universal Internet of Vehicles (UIoV) depends on Roadside Connection Node (RCN) to establish secure Vehicle-to-Everything (V2X) communication, necessitating both efficient and privacy-preserving vehicle authentication mechanisms. However, current anonymous credential schemes in UIoV are prone to uncontrolled anonymity abuse and suffer from high computational overhead. To issue these challenges, we propose TACB, a traceable anonymous credential with batch verification for the UIoV, which balances the privacy protection and regulatory. The TACB supports a conditional traceability mechanism that enables authorized entities to reveal the identities of malicious vehicles while preserving anonymity for legitimate users. We give the construction of TACB, which is based on the PS signatures, but is pairing-free on the vehicle sides. Moreover, efficient batch verification significantly reduces computational overhead. Finally, we conduct an analysis of the computational costs for the TACB and compare it with related works to demonstrate the effectiveness and practicality of TACB.