The papers in this special section focus on blockchains in emerging vehicular social networks. Nowadays, human factors are involved in Vehicular ad hoc networks (VANETs) and this arises to the vehicular social networks (VSNs) that promote the prosperity of VANETs and lay a solid foundation for the development of vehicular based services. With the development of fast and reliable vehicular communication techniques and various user-centric applications, VSNs are likely to pave the way for sustainable development by promoting transportation efficiency. However, the flourish of VSNs is still somehow plagued by security issues. For instance, emerging data-intensive applications such as insurance premium assessment always rely on the analysis and mining of the large-scale VSNs data. Therefore, the users’ data security and privacy become one of the most concerned issues. More examples of real threats are easy to find. If the traffic related messages are not authenticated and integrity-protected in VSNs, a single bogus and/or malicious message can potentially incur a terrible traffic accident. Thus, the real deployment of VSNs acquires appropriate security and privacy protection against the holistic environment. To meet such security and privacy requirements, a just recently proposed technique named blockchain should be significantly considered. Blockchain, widely known as one of the disruptive technologies, can provide technical support for VSNs in terms of big data management and security. Firstly, blockchain can create a ledger for VSNs, which records all data and behaviours occurring in VSNs, and coordinates all events that occurred and will happen. Once the data is uploaded to blockchain as a ledger, it is computational impossible for tampering. Secondly, blockchain can be further used to address security issues related to VSNs, such as the safety of connection and communication between intelligent vehicles. Meanwhile, the decentralized consensus mechanism will effectively strengthen the security of the system. By integrating with the smart contract, the blockchain can turn every vehicle into an independent network node, which can self-maintain and adjust. Versatile novel security properties can be offered by blockchain. Hence, it is urgent to explore the latest understanding and advances in the blockchain based techniques in VSNs. The response to our Call for Papers on this special issue was overwhelming, with 36 articles submitted from around the world. During the review process, each paper was assigned to and reviewed by multiple experts in the relevant areas, with a Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TVT.2020.2991623 rigorous two-round reviewprocess. Thanks to the courtesy of the Editor-in-Chief of IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Technology, Prof. Kato

中文翻译：

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客座社论新兴车辆社交网络中的区块链特别部分

本节中的论文重点介绍新兴的车载社交网络中的区块链。如今，人为因素参与了车辆自组织网络（VANET），这是促进VANET繁荣并为基于车辆的服务发展奠定坚实基础的车辆社交网络（VSN）。随着快速，可靠的车辆通信技术的发展以及各种以用户为中心的应用，VSN可能会通过提高运输效率来为可持续发展铺平道路。但是，VSN的蓬勃发展仍然受到安全问题的困扰。例如，新兴的数据密集型应用（例如保险费评估）始终依赖于大规模VSN数据的分析和挖掘。因此，用户的数据安全和隐私成为最关注的问题之一。真正的威胁的更多示例很容易找到。如果未在VSN中对与流量相关的消息进行身份验证和完整性保护，则单个伪造和/或恶意消息可能会导致可怕的交通事故。因此，VSN的实际部署可以获得针对整体环境的适当安全性和隐私保护。为了满足这样的安全性和隐私要求，应该认真考虑刚刚提出的名为区块链的技术。区块链被广泛称为破坏性技术之一，可以在大数据管理和安全性方面为VSN提供技术支持。首先，区块链可以为VSN创建分类帐，该分类帐记录VSN中发生的所有数据和行为，并协调所有已经发生和将要发生的事件。一旦数据作为分类账上传到区块链，就无法进行计算篡改。其次，区块链可以进一步用于解决与VSN相关的安全性问题，例如智能车辆之间连接和通信的安全性。同时，分散的共识机制将有效地增强系统的安全性。通过与智能合约集成，区块链可以将每辆车变成一个独立的网络节点，可以自我维护和调整。区块链可以提供多种新颖的安全特性。因此，迫切需要探索VSN中基于区块链的技术的最新理解和进步。对于我们针对此特殊问题的论文征集的反应是压倒性的，来自世界各地的36篇文章。在审阅过程中，每篇论文均分配给相关领域的多位专家进行审阅，并使用数字对象标识符10.1109 / TVT.2020.2991623进行了严格的两轮审阅。多亏了IEEE车辆技术交易总编辑的加藤教授