Non-destructive ghost authentication for single-pixel imaging in mass user environment

Abstract

A secured ghost imaging system can be constructed in a big data environment by generating many ciphertext sequences (including both correct and incorrect ones) from different object images and only allowing authorized users to retrieve the target correct ones. In such schemes, the identification of the truth of the ciphertext is a critical issue. In previous works, a ciphertext authentication scheme for a ghost imaging system was proposed by embedding ciphertext fractions generated from hidden images into the target object ciphertext sequence. However, the substituted ciphertext elements will cause severe degradation in the reconstructed object image quality, especially when a large number of hidden images are employed in a mass user environment. In this paper, we propose a non-destructive ciphertext authentication scheme by recording the positions of the ciphertext elements with similar intensities to form the authentication key, rather than direct embedding. Our proposed scheme has a significant advantage over the previous destructive authentication scheme by preserving the fidelity of the reconstructed object image when the ciphertext is authenticated by many users simultaneously.