XOR-based Visual Cryptography Schemes

A recent publication introduced a Visual Crypto (VC) system, based on the polarisation of light. This VC system has good resolution, contrast and colour properties. Mathematically, the VC system is described by the XOR operation (modulo two addition). In this paper we investigate Threshold Visual Secret Sharing schemes associated to XOR-based VC systems. Firstly, we show that n out of n schemes with optimal resolution and contrast exist, and that (2, n) schemes are equivalent to binary codes. It turns out that these schemes have much better resolution than their OR-based counterparts. Secondly, we provide two explicit constructions for general k out of n schemes. Finally, we derive bounds on the contrast and resolution of XOR-based schemes. It follows from these bounds that for k<n, the contrast is strictly smaller than one. Moreover, the bounds imply that XOR-based k out of n schemes for even k are fundamentally different from those for odd k.