Image sharing scheme based on combination theory

We present a simple algorithm for sharing and hiding secret image based on combination theory. The secret image is firstly encrypted by matrix multiplications and then shared into many shadow images by multiplying binary random sampling matrices. The sampling matrices randomly assign the pixel values to the shadow images which satisfy a specific combination rule as a constrain, so that the (t,n) threshold secret sharing scheme can be implemented. Numerical experiments have demonstrated the effectiveness of this image sharing algorithm. (C) 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.