Secret Sharing in Images Based on Error-Diffused Block Truncation Coding and Error Diffusion

Abstract

AbstractThis paper presents a novel \((n,n)\)–threshold secret sharing in images by using error-diffused block truncation coding (EDBTC) and error diffusion. The proposed scheme is designed to share a secret binary image, such as text image or natural image, into \(n\) EDBTC-compressed images including meaningful contents. The compressed shadows generated by our proposed scheme have good visual quality and no pixel expansion, which are beneficial to reduce suspicions from the invaders. Each value in the secret image is reconstructed by using boolean XOR operations which are considered as light-weight devices, thus the recovering process is simple and fast. In addition, EDBTC-compressed images instead of the original format images are selected as shadows, which can improve the efficiency for data transmission and storing. The experimental results demonstrate that the proposed scheme offers a high secure and effective mechanism for secret image sharing.KeywordsSecret sharingMeaningful shadowRecovering losslessError diffusionError-diffused block truncation coding (EDBTC)