Robust Secret Image Sharing Scheme Against Noise in Shadow Images

The (k, n)-threshold secret image sharing scheme is an image protection method, whose security comes partly from precise mathematical calculations, and even a little change in shadow images will lead to a false recovered image. Thus, it is crucial to recover the secret image information in the presence of possible noise on shadow images, which has rarely been considered in previous work. In this paper, a robust (k, n)-threshold polynomial-based secret image sharing scheme(RPSIS) against noise on shadow images is proposed, which depends on the randomness of the sharing phase without any other techniques, such as steganography. Additionally, pixel expansion caused by the direct application of error correction codes is avoided. Experimental results and theoretical proof confirm the effectiveness of our scheme. The shadow images of the scheme are of the same size as secret image and the security of the scheme is also maintained with no information leakage. Even though the shadow images are modified by noise, the original secret image can be reconstructed without loss under the error correction capability, which provides more possibilities for the practical application of secret image sharing.