Trusted Access Authentication Technology for Large-Scale Heterogeneous Terminals in a Vehicle Charging Network System

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

1. No reference to pattern numbers in article test.

2. No session - "discussion" in which authors must evaluate their work, showing positive and negative sides. This article does not contain this section.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

This paper discussed a three-tier (user-edge-cloud) trusted access authentication solution for terminals in vehicle networking charged system, using an ML-based framework. The evaluation results seem to verify the authors' claims that it addresses the difficulty of real-time unified authentication for large-scale heterogeneous terminals.

- In general the paper is interesting to read and the method suggested is quite novel.

- The structure is sound and clear, while it has a solid theoretic backgrouhd.

- The evaluation is thorough and extensive, providing analysis for the different tradeoffs. It is also performed through real-world experimentation which is always a plus. A comparative analysis is included as well.

However, I am mostly concerned about the motive and the placement of this work.

- My main concern is that the related works section is outdated, with many of the cited papers dating more than 5-6 years ago. I would suggest that the authors include some more recent papers from the literature. Additionally, there is not a single work referencing any challenges and opportunities in utilizing distributed computing architectures (like the Edge) such applications. I would suggest a recent survey on this field:

[1] Saeik, Firdose, et al. "Task offloading in Edge and Cloud Computing: A survey on mathematical, artificial intelligence and control theory solutions." Computer Networks 195 (2021): 108177.

- The authors mention that "...their incapability to perform any 208 common authentication algorithms", when it comes to used devices. Is there any reference for that? how are the common authentication protocols implemented all these years?

- The authors claim that "If all the authentication tasks are offloaded to the center node, it must lead to a huge transmission delay caused by the heavy request traffic and the long transmission distance". I am curious to know, what is the volume of data transferred in a single request? because in the modern backbone networks, where the speeds are in the gigabit order, it seems to me that this is an overstatement. Still a reference here would be greatly appreciated. 

- A minor comment is that I suggest that the authors plot Figure 11 over an averaged number of experiment repetitions, so that the results are smoothed. In this way, the reader will get a clearer idea of the convergence behavior. 

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments

In the current manuscript “Trusted Access Authentication Technology for Large-Scale Heterogeneous Terminals in Vehicle Networking Charged System”, the author has proposed a robust and lightweight trusted access authentication solution for terminals in vehicle networking charged system. The design can address the difficulty of real-time unified authentication for large-scale heterogeneous terminals faced by the system, which may contribute to the security of the internet of vehicles. The author claims that it can be applied to many other systems with similar challenges. The manuscript is well organized and can be accepted after the following minor revision.

 

1.      The introduction should be revised with concise and compact information. The current introduction content is too large, which should be reduced.

2.      Figure 2 should be modified to more visual views to the reader using suitable color combinations and schematics providing the sequential investigation steps in this research works. Figure 6 should also be revised, especially the color combination should be suitable and the text should be large as well as readable.

3.      Figures 3, 5, 8, and 9 should be revised with bold text and colored graph lines for ease of understanding to the readers. Bar graphs can be used in Figures 8 and 9.

4.      The author is suggested to add some actual Figures/ Pictures of the experiment/ data acquisition process/ devices.  There are only schematics in the current manuscript, so the addition of some practical/experimental/ device/process pictures will make it more attractive and its credibility.

5.      The abstract and conclusion sections should be revised with more professional and technical terms. The key parameters of achievement in this research should be mentioned with their values and magnitudes instead of simple sentences. Otherwise, it may give the impression of the review paper.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 4 Report

The paper with title “Trusted Access Authentication Technology for Large-Scale Heterogeneous Terminals in Vehicle Networking Charged System” proposes a robust and lightweight trusted access authentication solution for terminals in vehicle networking charged system. By well-designed device fingerprint extraction and end-edge-cloud collaborative fingerprint identification, the solution effectively addresses the difficulty of real-time unified authentication for large-scale heterogeneous terminals faced by the system. To minimize authentication latency, the authors design an authentication task scheduling scheme to decide which server executes the current task.

 

The paper is interesting and is, in general, professionally written, but there are some parts that could be improved or rewritten.

 

In section 2. Related work, authors could add more current references related with this field, some examples could be: S. Guo, X. Hu, Z. Zhou, X. Wang, F. Qi and L. Gao, "Trust access authentication in vehicular network based on blockchain," in China Communications, vol. 16, no. 6, pp. 18-30, June 2019, doi: 10.23919/JCC.2019.06.002, B. Nakisa, F. Ansarizadeh, P. Oommen and S. Shrestha, "Technology Acceptance Model: A Case Study of Palm Vein Authentication Technology," in IEEE Access, vol. 10, pp. 120436-120449, 2022, doi: 10.1109/ACCESS.2022.3221413, A. Aghabagherloo, M. Delavar, J. Mohajeri, M. Salmasizadeh and B. Preneel, "An Efficient and Physically Secure Privacy-Preserving Authentication Scheme for Vehicular Ad-hoc NETworks (VANETs)," in IEEE Access, vol. 10, pp. 93831-93844, 2022, doi: 10.1109/ACCESS.2022.3203580, H. Tan, W. Zheng, Y. Guan and R. Lu, "A Privacy-Preserving Attribute-Based Authenticated Key Management Scheme for Accountable Vehicular Communications," in IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Technology, 2022, doi: 10.1109/TVT.2022.3220410.

 

In section 3. System Design, the authors introduce the detailed design of trusted access authentication scheme that can address the large-scale heterogeneous terminal access challenge faced by vehicle networking charged system. In my opinion, in order to improve the quality of the paper, the authors could add some flowchart to understand better the algorithm that appears in page 13.

 

In section 5. Conclusion. The authors expose the conclusions, they are very comprehensive, very useful.

 

As a general comment, the authors should revise the grammar of the text.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

The authors have addressed all my comments. Therefore, I believe that the manuscript is fit for publishing.