Visual Cryptography Scheme With Meaningful Shares Based on QR Codes

In the past few years, visual cryptography scheme (VCS) has aroused much research attention and developed rapidly because of its simple decryption. However, meaningless shares remain a continuing challenge of VCS to its practical applications. In this paper, we propose a (k, n)-VCS combining with QR codes. To enlarge the allowable maximum size of secret image, a probabilistic sharing model is utilized. Based on it, a secret sharing method is presented with high relative difference. Furthermore, we embed the initial shares into cover QR codes by using encoding redundancy. After that, each share is meaningful and can be read by any standard QR code reader. Different from previous work, error correction capacities of the covers are perfectly preserved. We also highlight that our scheme can be used to authenticate the security of QR codes from some uncertain sources. Finally, experimental results and comparisons are provided to show the feasibility and advantages of the proposed scheme.