Autonomous vehicle theft prevention

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9688244-B2
Application number	US-201514739637-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Jun 15, 2015
Priority date	Jun 15, 2015
Publication date	Jun 27, 2017
Grant date	Jun 27, 2017

Abstract

A destination request may specify a destination location for an autonomous vehicle identified by a vehicle identifier. The request may be for uniqueness of a timestamp of the destination request. An encrypted payload of the request may be decrypted to identify the destination location using a long key associated with the vehicle identifier and indexed to a key offset determined using the timestamp. A driving command may be sent to the autonomous vehicle specifying the destination location.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A system comprising:
a server, including memory and one or more hardware processors, configured to
receive, over a network from a requesting device, an encrypted payload of a destination request specifying a destination location for an autonomous vehicle, the destination request including a vehicle identifier in a header of the destination request,
validate uniqueness of a timestamp of the destination request,
retrieve a long key from a data store of the server by querying the data store for the Ion key associated with the vehicle identifier,
decrypt the encrypted payload to identify the destination location using a long key indexed to a key offset determined using the timestamp, and
send a driving command to the autonomous vehicle specifying the destination location.

2. The system of claim 1 , wherein the server is further configured to raise an alert when validation of uniqueness of the timestamp of the destination request fails.

3. The system of claim 1 , wherein the long key includes a random string of bytes at least as long as a length in bytes of the encrypted payload.

4. The system of claim 1 , wherein the server is further configured to decrypt the encrypted payload by performing an inverse of a mathematical operation performed, using an unencrypted payload and the long key, to encrypt the encrypted payload.

5. The system of claim 4 , wherein the mathematical operation is one of addition, subtraction ignoring carry-out, and exclusive-or.

6. The system of claim 1 , wherein the encrypted payload includes the vehicle identifier in encrypted form, and the server is further configured to validate the destination request by comparing the vehicle identifier included in the header and a vehicle identifier decrypted from the encrypted payload.

7. A system comprising:
a mobile device configured to
receive a destination location for an autonomous vehicle;
generate a destination request, including a packet header specifying a timestamp and a vehicle identifier of the autonomous vehicle, specifying the destination location;
identify a key offset into a long key using the timestamp;
encrypt a payload of the destination request using the key offset; and
send the destination request to a server to forward to the autonomous vehicle.

8. The system of claim 7 , wherein the mobile device is further configured to retrieve the long key from storage of the mobile device.

9. The system of claim 7 , wherein the long key includes a random string of bytes at least as long as a length in bytes of the payload of the destination request.

10. The system of claim 7 , wherein the mobile device is further configured to encrypt the payload by performing a reversible mathematical operation using the payload and the long key.

11. The system of claim 10 , wherein the mathematical operation is one of addition, subtraction ignoring carry-out, and exclusive-or.

12. A computer-implemented method comprising:
receiving a request specifying a destination for an autonomous vehicle identified by a vehicle identifier included in a header of the request;
validating uniqueness of a request timestamp for the vehicle identifier;
retrieving a long key from a data store by querying the data store for the long key associated with the vehicle identifier;
decrypting a request payload to identify the destination using the long key indexed to a key offset determined using the timestamp; and
sending a driving command to the autonomous vehicle specifying the destination.

13. The method of claim 12 , further comprising raising an alert when validation of uniqueness of the request timestamp fails.

14. The method of claim 12 , wherein the long key includes a random string of bytes at least as long as a length in bytes of the payload.

15. The method of claim 12 , further comprising decrypting the payload by performing a reverse of a mathematical operation performed using an unencrypted payload and the long key to encrypt the payload.

16. The method of claim 15 , wherein the mathematical operation is one of addition, subtraction ignoring carry-out, and exclusive-or.

17. The method of claim 12 , wherein the payload includes the vehicle identifier in encrypted form, and further comprising validating the request by matching the vehicle identifier included in the header and a vehicle identifier decrypted from the payload.

Assignees

• Ford Global Tech Llc

Inventors

• Martin Douglas Raymond
• Rockwell Mark Anthony

Classifications

• G06F21/606

  by securing the transmission between two devices or processes · CPC title

• G06F21/88

  Detecting or preventing theft or loss · CPC title

• G01C21/34

  Route searching; Route guidance · CPC title

• G01C21/362

  received from an external device or application, e.g. PDA, mobile phone or calendar application · CPC title

• H04L2209/84

  Vehicles · CPC title