Abstract
The secret sharing scheme can share the secret image with several shares. The secure transmission of the quick response (QR) code can be enhanced by the secret sharing scheme on the Internet. This paper proposes the QR code secret sharing scheme (QRCSSS) by using color QR codes. The standard QR code is modified to a color QR code. The color of the secret image is shared by the color of the share (color QR code). QRCSSS can generate two color QR codes. When two color QR codes are performed color OR, a secret color QR code is restored. The restored color QR code has contrast in color. It can be converted to a standard QR code by the proposed contrast enhancer. This paper analyzes how the color QR code can be decoded correctly by the general QR code decoder. The experimental results show that the proposed scheme is feasible.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Burger W, Burge MJ (2010) Principles of digital image processing: fundamental techniques. Springer Science & Business Media, Berlin
Cai H, Yan B, Chen N, Pan JS, Yang H (2019) Beautified QR code with high storage capacity using sequential module modulation. Multimed Tools Appl 78(16):22575–22599
Chen C, Huang Y, Wang K, Kumari S, Wu M (2020) A secure authenticated and key exchange scheme for fog computing. Enterprise Inform Syst, 1–16
Chen Y, Lin JY, Chang CC, Hu YC (2020) Sharing a secret image in the cloud using two shadows. Int J Netw Secur 22(4):551–560
Cheng Y, Fu Z, Yu B (2018) Improved visual secret sharing scheme for QR code applications. IEEE Trans Inform Forens Secur 13(9):2393–2403
Chow YW, Susilo W, Yang G, Phillips JG, Pranata I, Barmawi AM (2016) Exploiting the error correction mechanism in QR codes for secret sharing. In: Australasian conference on information security and privacy. Springer, pp 409–425
Dehghani M., Montazeri Z., Dehghani A., Mendoza R.R., Samet H., Guerrero J.M., Dhiman G. (2020) Mlo: Multileader optimizer. Int J Intell Eng Syst 13:364–373
Dehghani M, Montazeri Z, Dhiman G, Malik O, Morales-Menendez R, Ramirez-Mendoza RA, Dehghani A, Guerrero JM, Parra-Arroyo L (2020) A spring search algorithm applied to engineering optimization problems. Appl Sci 10(18):6173
Dehghani M, Montazeri Z, Givi H, Guerrero JM, Dhiman G (2020) Darts game optimizer: A new optimization technique based on darts game. Int J Intell Eng Syst 13:286–294
Dehghani M, Montazeri Z, Malik OP, Dhiman G, Kumar V (2019) Bosa: Binary orientation search algorithm. Int J Innov Technol Explor Eng (IJITEE) 9:5306–5310
Dhiman G (2019) Esa: A hybrid bio-inspired metaheuristic optimization approach for engineering problems. Eng Comput, 1–31
Dhiman G, Garg M, Nagar A, Kumar V, Dehghani M (2020) A novel algorithm for global optimization: Rat swarm optimizer. J Ambient Intell Humanized Comput, 1–26
Dhiman G, Kaur A (2019) Stoa: A bio-inspired based optimization algorithm for industrial engineering problems. Eng Appl Artif Intell 82:148–174
Dhiman G, Kumar V (2017) Spotted hyena optimizer: a novel bio-inspired based metaheuristic technique for engineering applications. Adv Eng Softw 114:48–70
Dhiman G, Kumar V (2018) Emperor penguin optimizer: a bio-inspired algorithm for engineering problems. Knowl-Based Syst 159:20–50
Dhiman G, Kumar V (2019) Seagull optimization algorithm: Theory and its applications for large-scale industrial engineering problems. Knowl-Based Syst 165:169–196
Dhiman G, Oliva D, Kaur A, Singh KK, Vimal S, Sharma A, Cengiz K (2021) Bepo: a novel binary emperor penguin optimizer for automatic feature selection. Knowl-Based Syst 211:106560
Fairman HS, Brill MH, Hemmendinger H (1997) How the CIE 1931 color-matching functions were derived from wright-guild data. Color Research & Application: Endorsed by Inter-Society Color Council, The Colour Group (Great Britain), Canadian Society for Color, Color Science Association of Japan, Dutch Society for the Study of Color, The Swedish Colour Centre Foundation, Colour Society of Australia. Centre Franç,ais de la Couleur 22(1):11–23
Fang WP (2011) Offline QR code authorization based on visual cryptography. In: 2011 Seventh international conference on intelligent information hiding and multimedia signal processing. IEEE, pp 89–92
Fu Z, Cheng Y, Liu S, Yu B (2019) A new two-level information protection scheme based on visual cryptography and QR code with multiple decryptions. Measurement 141:267–276
Github (2019) Zxing library https://github.com/zxing/zxing
Gonzalez RC, Wintz P (1977) Digital image processing. reading, Mass., Addison-Wesley Publishing Co. Inc.Applied Mathematics and Computation
Guild J (1931) The colorimetric properties of the spectrum. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series A Containing Papers of a Mathematical or Physical Character 230(681-693):149–187
Huang PC, Chang CC, Li YH, Liu Y (2020) Efficient QR code secret embedding mechanism based on hamming code. IEEE Access 8:86706–86714
Huang H, Chu SC, Pan JS, Huang C, Liao B (2011) Tabu search based multi-watermarks embedding algorithm with multiple description coding. Inf Sci 181(16):3379–3396
ISO/IEC Standard 18004 (2000) Information Technology – Automatic Identification and Data Capture Techniques – Bar Code Symbology – QR Code
Kaur S, Awasthi LK, Sangal A, Dhiman G (2020) Tunicate swarm algorithm: a new bio-inspired based metaheuristic paradigm for global optimization. Eng Appl Artif Intell 90:103541
Lin PY (2016) Distributed secret sharing approach with cheater prevention based on QR code. IEEE Trans Indust Inform 12(1):384–392
Liu T, Yan B, Pan JS (2019) Color visual secret sharing for QR code with perfect module reconstruction. Appl Sci 9(21):4670
Naor M, Shamir A (1994) Visual cryptography. In: Workshop on the theory and application of cryptographic techniques. Springer, pp 1–12
Otsu N (1979) A threshold selection method from gray-level histograms. IEEE Transactions on Systems Man, and Cybernetics 9(1):62–66
Pan JS, Sun XX, Chu SC, Abraham A, Yan B (2020) Digital watermarking with improved SMS applied for QR code. Eng Appl Artif Intell 97:104049
Tan L, Liu K, Yan X, Wan S, Chen J, Chang C (2018) Visual secret sharing scheme for color QR code. In: 2018 IEEE 3Rd international conference on image, vision and computing (ICIVC). IEEE, pp 961–965
Tan L, Lu Y, Yan X, Liu L, Zhou X (2020) Xor-ed visual secret sharing scheme with robust and meaningful shadows based on qr codes. Multimed Tools Appl 79(9):5719–5741
Wang F, Yen KK, Jain LC, Pan JS (2007) Multiuser-based shadow watermark extraction system. Inf Sci 177(12):2522–2532
Weng S, Pan JS, Li L (2016) Reversible data hiding based on an adaptive pixel-embedding strategy and two-layer embedding. Inf Sci 369:144–159
Weng CJ, Pan JS, Liu SJ, Wang MJ (2018) A watermarking method for printed QR code based on module expansion. In: International conference on intelligent information hiding and multimedia signal processing. Springer, pp 124–133
Wright WD (1929) A re-determination of the trichromatic coefficients of the spectral colours. Trans Opt Soc 30(4):141
Wu TY, Chen CM, Wang KH, Meng C, Wang EK (2019) A provably secure certificateless public key encryption with keyword search. J Chin Inst Eng 42(1):20–28
Wu X, Sun W (2013) Improving the visual quality of random grid-based visual secret sharing. Signal Process 93(5):977–995
Yan B, Xiang Y, Hua G (2019) Improving the visual quality of size-invariant visual cryptography for grayscale images: an analysis-by-synthesis (abs) approach. IEEE Trans Image Process 28(2):896–911
Yang C (2004) New visual secret sharing schemes using probabilistic method. Pattern Recogn Lett 25(4):481–494
Yang CN, Wu CC, Lin YC (2017) k out of n region-based progressive visual cryptography. IEEE Trans Circuits Syst Video Technol 29(1):252–262
Acknowledgements
This work is supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (61872085), the Natural Science Foundation of Fujian Province (2018J01638) and the Fujian Provincial Department of Science and Technology (2018Y3001).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
Publisher’s note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Pan, JS., Liu, T., Yan, B. et al. Using color QR codes for QR code secret sharing. Multimed Tools Appl 81, 15545–15563 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11042-022-12423-z
Received:
Revised:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11042-022-12423-z