Conventional Visual Cryptography Research Articles

Visual Cryptography Using Binary Amplitude-Only Holograms

Visual cryptography (VC) is developed to be a promising approach to encoding secret information using pixel expansion rules. The useful information can be directly rendered based on human vision without the usage of decryption algorithms. However, many VC schemes cannot withstand occlusion attacks. In this paper, a new VC scheme is proposed using binary amplitude-only holograms (AOHs) generated by a modified Gerchberg-Saxton algorithm (MGSA). During the encryption, a secret image is divided into a group of unrecognizable and mutually-unrelated shares, and then the generated shares are further converted to binary AOHs using the MGSA. During image extraction, binary AOHs are logically superimposed to form a stacked hologram, and then the secret image can be extracted from the stacked hologram. Different from conventional VC schemes, the proposed VC scheme converts a secret image into binary AOHs. Due to the redundancy of the generated binary AOHs, the proposed method is numerically and experimentally verified to be feasible and effective, and possesses high robustness against occlusion attacks.

Enhanced-visual-cryptography-based optical information hiding system

Recent years, with the rapid development of information technology, the information security has received more and more attention. A variety of encryption methods to protect the information have been reported. Visual cryptography is one of the encryption methods, which has highly security because of its threshold feature. And the cryptographic information can be explained by a naked eye in the decryption process. In the application of visual cryptography, however, each shared image is limited to transparency films and overlapping on computer. In our previous work, we proposed the scheme of invisible visual cryptography and developed the visual-cryptography-based optical hiding system (VCOH), which transformed the conventional visual cryptography shares into diffraction optical elements (DOEs). It not only increases the application range of visual cryptography, but also enhances security. In this paper, we propose an optical information hiding system based on the extended visual cryptography, which inherits the concept of invisible visual cryptography. In contrast to our previous work, the method proposed in this work can hide a meaningful image instead of text messages. Meanwhile, the capacity and imperceptibility of the method are greatly increased. The hiding process of the system contains two steps. Firstly, the secret image is converted into meaningful shares through the extended visual cryptography algorithm. Secondly, the meaningful shares are able to hide in phase-keys through an iterative phase retrieval algorithm, such as Gerchberg-Saxton algorithm and Yang-Gu iterative algorithm. Then the phase-keys can be made into diffraction optical elements (DOEs) to store and transport in a physical way. In the decryption process, DOEs are illuminated with the laser beam to reconstruct the meaningful shares. The secret image can be explained by the direct overlapping of the reconstructed shares without any optical or cryptographic knowledge. The simulation and optical experimental results show that the proposed method has good performance of security and validate the feasibility of the proposed method. Besides, in this paper the robustness and security issues are also analyzed. This system has a high security because of its indistinguishability under adaptive chosen ciphertext attack (IND-CCA2) security. Additionally, this system is relatively less robust than the VCOH because it shares meaningful images with highly complex and detailed structures.

Collaborative Visual Cryptography Schemes

A ( $k,n$ )-conventional visual cryptography (VC) scheme is designed to share one secret and each participant takes one share. When some common participants are involved in multiple VC schemes for multiple secrets, each needs to take multiple shares. This procedure needs more shares, which is inconvenient. It is desirable that the collaboration between the VC schemes can allow each common participant to keep only one share. Simply merging or gluing together two traditional ( $k_{1}$ , $n_{1}$ )- and ( $k_{2}$ , $n_{2}$ )-VC schemes, after making their pixel expansions the same, might be able to facilitate the collaboration and allow each common participant to keep only one share. But there is a security risk that when a subset of $k_{1}$ participants are from the collection of noncommon participants, some from scheme 1 and some from scheme 2, they can reconstruct secret 1, which is inconsistent with the intention of the original scheme. Similarly, $k_{2}$ noncommon participants could reconstruct secret 2. This shortcoming is inherited from the brute-force combination of traditional schemes. Therefore, a more sophisticated mechanism is required; this is the main task of this paper. In this paper, we first transform collaborative VC (CVC) schemes into the multiple secrets VC scheme with a general access structure. The construction of the basis matrices in CVC scheme between two VC schemes is formulated into an integer linear programming problem that minimizes the pixel expansion under the corresponding security and contrast constraints. Also the collaboration among more VC schemes is constructed. Finally, the experimental results illustrate the construction procedure of the CVC scheme and demonstrate the effectiveness of the CVC scheme.

Invisible Visual Cryptography**Supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant No 61575197, the K. C. Wong Education Foundation, the Fusion Foundation of Research and Education of Chinese Academy of Sciences, and the Youth Innovation Promotion Association of Chinese Academy of Sciences under Grant No 2017489.

We propose to realize visual cryptography in an indirect way with the help of diffractive optics, the pure-amplitude keys being substituted with the phase-only keys that are invisible for common-used intensity detectors, leading to the significantly enhanced security and improved usability for practice. Three typical realizations are provided by using static or dynamic diffractive optical elements, and the new concept of invisible visual cryptography (IVC) may be established. This concept is demonstrated by a compact opto-electronic system with only one spatial light modulator within time-delayed exposure, maintaining the fast speed of decryption and no requirement to the calculation of decryption in conventional visual cryptography. Further, IVC shows the immunity to noises and good information capacity, which is partly inherited from diffractive optics. IVC might suggest a new strategy for visual cryptography with the respective of diverse realizations, such as opto-electronic or even bio-chemical or other methods.

Dual Visual Cryptography Using the Interference Color of Birefringent Material

Visual cryptography is a method of encrypting an image into several encrypted images. Conventional visual cryptography can display only monochrome images. We previously proposed a color visual cryptography method that uses the interference color of high-order retarder films and encrypts one secret image into two encrypted images. In other words, this method can only encrypt one image at a time. In this paper, we propose a new method that encrypts two color images using interference color.

High-chroma visual cryptography using interference color of high-order retarder films

Visual cryptography can be used as a method of sharing a secret image through several encrypted images. Conventional visual cryptography can display only monochrome images. We have developed a high-chroma color visual encryption technique using the interference color of high-order retarder films. The encrypted films are composed of a polarizing film and retarder films. The retarder films exhibit interference color when they are sandwiched between two polarizing films. We propose a stacking technique for displaying high-chroma interference color images. A prototype visual cryptography device using high-chroma interference color is developed.

Preserving user-friendly shadow and high-contrast quality for multiple visual secret sharing technique

Traditional secret sharing scheme that encrypts secret image based on mathematical calculation to construct shadows often requires the complicated computation to extract the secret. Later on, conventional visual cryptography scheme was developed to deal with the perplexed calculation in encryption and extraction of previous schemes. The stack-to-see technique can be used easily to reveal the secret by human visual system, which can shorten computation time. However, the expansion of image size and the noise-liked shares of previous schemes lead to the difficulty in transmission and storage. This study uses a pre-defined codebook to encode two secret images into two meaningful transparencies without pixel expansion. According to the turning mechanism, two secret images can be embedded into two shares simultaneously. The decryption process allows the user to get two secrets via turning and stacking. A notable feature of our scheme is that the black pixel value of the secret image can be completely extracted and the vision quality of stacking results can be identified clearly.

Image Size Invariant Visual Cryptography for General Access Structures Subject to Display Quality Constraints

Conventional visual cryptography (VC) suffers from a pixel-expansion problem, or an uncontrollable display quality problem for recovered images, and lacks a general approach to construct visual secret sharing schemes for general access structures. We propose a general and systematic approach to address these issues without sophisticated codebook design. This approach can be used for binary secret images in non-computer-aided decryption environments. To avoid pixel expansion, we design a set of column vectors to encrypt secret pixels rather than using the conventional VC-based approach. We begin by formulating a mathematic model for the VC construction problem to find the column vectors for the optimal VC construction, after which we develop a simulated-annealing-based algorithm to solve the problem. The experimental results show that the display quality of the recovered image is superior to that of previous papers.

Visual Cryptography Using Interference Color of High-Order Retarder Films

Visual cryptography is known as a method of sharing a secret image through several encrypted images. Conventional visual cryptography can display only monochrome images. We develop a multicolor visual encryption technique using the interference color of high-order retarder films. The encrypted films are composed of a polarizing film and retarder films. Retarder films exhibit an interference color upon sandwiching between two polarizing films. A prototype of a visual cryptography device using interference color is developed. Eight colors are represented by combining an encrypted image and a decoding mask composed of retarder films with various retardations.

A cheating prevention EVC scheme using watermarking techniques

Visual Cryptography (VC), proposed by Naor and Shamir in 1994, is a variation of the conventional secret sharing scheme. In VC, instead of a numerical secret key, a secret image is shared among participants in the form of images called shares. Each participant possesses his own share which cannot reveal the secret image being alone, making it necessary to stack more than one share of a qualified participant in order to reveal the secret image. Thus in VC the stacking of shares is equivalent to the decryption process, where neither extra computations nor previous knowledge are required to reveal the secret image. Until now some important VC schemes, such as the (k,n)-VC scheme, the general access structure for VC and the extended VC (EVC), have been proposed. Unfortunately all schemes can be cheated, if one or more participants try to generate their fake shares to force the revealed secret image to be a faked one. In this paper, we propose a cheating prevention VC scheme, in which the shares can be identified and authenticated using the EVC scheme and watermarking techniques. In the proposed VC scheme, the share of each participant can be identified by its meaningful appearance instead of noise-like image used in the conventional VC scheme. For the purpose of authentication of each share two binary watermark images are encrypted using shift operation. Before the secret image is revealed, the validation of the shares must be carried out, extracting two watermark images. If they can be extracted correctly, the revealed secret image is considered as authentic; otherwise it is determined as a faked one. The simulation results show the desirable performance of the proposed EVC scheme.

An Extended Visual Cryptography Algorithm for General Access Structures

Conventional visual secret sharing schemes generate noise-like random pixels on shares to hide secret images. It suffers a management problem, because of which dealers cannot visually identify each share. This problem is solved by the extended visual cryptography scheme (EVCS), which adds a meaningful cover image in each share. However, the previous approaches involving the EVCS for general access structures suffer from a pixel expansion problem. In addition, the visual cryptography (VC)-based approach needs a sophisticated codebook design for various schemes. In this paper, we propose a general approach to solve the above- mentioned problems; the approach can be used for binary secret images in noncomputer-aided decryption environments. The pro- posed approach consists of two phases. In the first phase, based on a given access structure, we construct meaningless shares using an optimization technique and the construction for conventional VC schemes. In the second phase, cover images are added in each share directly by a stamping algorithm. The experimental results indicate that a solution to the pixel expansion problem of the EVCS for GASs is achieved. Moreover, the display quality of the recovered image is very close to that obtained using conventional VC schemes.

Comparación entre Varios Esquemas de Criptografía Visual Extendida

A description and comparison of three visual extended cryptography algorithms is presented. Currently these methods are often used as a basis for developing more complex schemes. Results related to overlapping shades, pixel expansion, quality of images and shades, and the number of coded images are obtained. In conventional visual cryptography a secret image is encrypted into a set of images that look like random-noise and are distributed to each participant of the scheme. To obtain the secret image the images received must be super-imposed. .In the extended visual cryptography the shades are visually recognizable images. It is concluded that the three methods present particular advantages depending on the application.

Tagged Visual Cryptography

This letter presents a method for implementing visual cryptography (VC) in which an additional tag is attached to each generated share. The proposed (t, n), 2 ≤ t ≤ n tagged visual cryptography (TVC) scheme works like a traditional VC scheme does, where the original image is encoded in n shares in such a way that the secret can be revealed by superimposing any t or more shares, but knowledge of less than t shares gets no secret information. A notable characteristic of TVC is that an extra tag can be revealed by folding up each share, which provides users with supplementary information such as augmented message or distinguishable patterns to identify the shares. The tagging property can easily be applied to any reported VC scheme to endow the generated shares with more capabilities. Construction methods and simulation results of the proposed (t , n) TVC based on conventional matrix-based VC and probabilistic-VC are illustrated in the letter.

Visual multiple secret sharing based upon turning and flipping

The secret sharing schemes in conventional visual cryptography are capable of sharing one secret image into a set of random transparencies (called shares) in the form of rectangles, which reveal the secret image to the human visual system when they are superimposed. Recently, visual secret sharing schemes involving multiple secrets have attracted much attention. By adopting rotations on one of the two encoded circle shares, more than two secrets could be shared. Yet, the encoding and decoding processes of circle shares need more sophisticated mechanisms than those of rectangular or square ones. In this paper, we explore the possibilities of visual multiple secret sharing using simply two rectangular or square shares. Specifically, we define some operations onto a transparency based upon turning over or flipping around. Then we propose visual cryptographic schemes that are able to encode two or four secrets into two rectangular shares and up to eight secrets into two square shares such that the secrets cannot be obtained from any single share, whereas they are revealed by stacking the two shares under various combinations of turning or flipping operations. The proposed schemes, which solidly elaborate the relationship between the encoded shares and the shared secrets, broaden the research scope and enrich the flexibility and applicability of visual cryptography or image encryption theoretically and practically.

Visual Multiple-Secret Sharing by Circle Random Grids

We design innovative algorithms for visual multiple-secret sharing using circle or cylinder random grids in this paper. Formal validations, security analyses, and computer implementations are discussed to demonstrate the correctness and feasibility of our algorithms. As compared to the schemes developed in conventional visual cryptography, our design delivers three significant advantages: (1) it is capable of sharing multiple (instead of only one or two) secret images in two shares; (2) it does not result in any extra pixel expansion so that the sizes of the secret image and the encrypted shares are exactly the same; and (3) it is simple and easy to implement. These advantages broaden the potential applicability and flexibility of visual secret sharing schemes.

Visual Cryptography Using Polarization-Modulation Films

Conventional visual cryptography reduces the resolution of secret information because its encryption is based on spatial coding that requires multiple subpixels to modulate light intensity. To overcome this resolution problem in visual cryptography, we propose a new type of visual cryptography based on polarization processing. Each pixel in a secret image is encrypted into a corresponding single pixel in encrypted films. The encrypted films are composed of a polarizing film and patterned retarder films. We developed an encryption code set for decoding by stacking the encrypted films in the correct order. Furthermore, we demonstrated multiple decoded results with encrypted films that exhibit stacking order dependence.

Image encryption by multiple random grids

In this paper, we first give a formal definition to the visual cryptograms of n (⩾2) random grids (VCRG- n) for encrypting an image. Specifically, a set of VCRG- n with respect to image P consists of n random grids printed on transparencies such that only when the n transparencies are superimposed altogether can P be recognized by human vision (without any computing device), while any group of less than n transparencies obtains no information about P. Then, we design novel VCRG- n encryption schemes for binary, gray-level and color images, validate the correctness by formal proofs and demonstrate the feasibility by computer simulations. Our schemes do not require any extra pixel expansion neither any encoding basis matrix, which are necessary and inevitable in the approaches of conventional visual cryptography. These attractive advantages make our schemes more informative in theoretical interests and much applicable in practical applications.

Sharing multiple secrets in visual cryptography

The secret sharing schemes in conventional visual cryptography are characterized by encoding one shared secret into a set of random transparencies which reveal the secret to the human visual system when they are superimposed. In this paper, we propose a visual secret sharing scheme that encodes a set of x ⩾ 2 secrets into two circle shares such that none of any single share leaks the secrets and the x secrets can be obtained one by one by stacking the first share and the rotated second shares with x different rotation angles. This is the first true result that discusses the sharing ability in visual cryptography up to any general number of multiple secrets in two circle shares.