This document provides the starting point for the development of dependability solutions in the HIDENETS project with the following contents: (1) A conceptual framework is defined that contains the relevant terminology, threats and general requirements. This framework is a HIDENETS relevant subset of existing state-of-the-art views in the scientific dependability community. Furthermore, the dependability framework contains a first list of relevant functionalities in the communication and middleware level, which will act as input for the architectural discussions in HIDENETS work packages (WPs) 2 and 3. (2) A set of 17 applications with HIDENETS relevance is identified and their corresponding dependability requirements are derived. These applications belong mostly to the class of car-tocar and car-to-infrastructure services and have been selected due to their different types of dependability needs. (3) The applications have been grouped in six HIDENETS use cases, each consisting of a set of applications. The use cases will be the basis for the development of the dependability solutions in all other WPs. Together with a description of each use-case, application-specific architectural aspects are identified and corresponding failure modes and challenges are listed. (4) The business impact of dependability solutions for these use cases is analysed. (5) A preliminary definition of a HIDENETS reference model is provided, which contains highlevel architectural assumptions. This HIDENETS reference model will be further developed in the course of the HIDENETS projects in close cooperation with the other WPs, which is the reason why the preliminary version also contains a collection of potential contributions from other WPs that shall be developed and investigated in the course of the HIDENETS project. In summary, the identified use-cases and their requirements clearly show the large number of dependability related challenges. First steps towards technical solutions have been made in this report in the preliminary reference model, whereas the other work-packages have started in the meanwhile to develop such solutions further based on 'middleware technology' (WP2), 'communication protocols' (WP3), 'quantitative analysis methodology' (WP4), and 'design and testing methodology' (WP5)