Paper 2002/194

A polarisation based Visual Crypto System and its Secret Sharing Schemes

P. Tuyls, H.D.L. Hollmann, J.H.v. Lint, L. Tolhuizen

Abstract

In this paper, we present a new visual crypto system based on the polarisation of light and investigate the existence and structure of the associated threshold visual secret sharing schemes. It is shown that very efficient $(n,n)$ schemes exist and that $(2,n)$ schemes are equivalent to binary codes. The existence of $(k,n)$ schemes is shown in general by two explicit constructions. Finally, bounds on the physical properties as contrast and resolution are derived.