Hierarchical threshold secret sharing scheme for color images

Abstract

The applications that use pattern recognition via secret sharing are seldom linear, straightforward and uncomplicated. The layers of complexity grows as the process turns more secretive. In applications, such as banking transactions, hierarchical secret sharing comes in as a handy tool. This paper analyses the use of disjunctive hierarchy of secret sharing without compromising security while saving time. This scheme simplifies the process when more hands are involved by using simple Boolean and arithmetic operations and thus reduces the computational complexity from O (nlog2n) to O (n). The other features are authentication of the participants using Lagrange Interpolation; non-requirement of half toning of color images; no pixel expansion without degradation in visual quality of the recovered secret image. This paper also provides solution for meaningful share images with the ability to detect the manipulation of share images. The main advantage of this scheme is that it gives the benefit in scenarios in which participants of different levels are involved.