Matrix-Based Secret Sharing for Reversible Data Hiding in Encrypted Images

Traditional schemes for reversible data hiding in encrypted images (RDH-EI) focus on one data hider and cannot resist the single point of failure. Besides, the image security is determined by one party, rather than multiple parties. Thus, it is valuable to design RDH-EI schemes with multiple data hiders for stronger security. In this article, we propose a multiple data hiders-based RDH-EI scheme using a new secret sharing technique. First, we devise an $(r,n)$-threshold $(r\leq n)$ matrix-based secret sharing (MSS) using matrix theory, and theoretically verify its efficacy and security properties. Then, using the MSS, we propose an $(r,n)$-threshold RDH-EI scheme called MSS-RDHEI. The content owner encrypts an image to be $n$ encrypted images using the MSS with an encryption key, and outsources these encrypted images to $n$ data hiders. Each data hider can embed some data, e.g., copyright and identification information, into the encrypted image for the purposes of storage, management, or other processing, and these data can also be losslessly extracted. An authorized receiver can recover the confidential image from $r$ encrypted images. By designing, our MSS-RDHEI scheme can withstand $n-r$ points of failure. Experimental results show that it ensures the image content confidentiality and achieves a much larger embedding capacity than state-of-the-art schemes.