Distributed Secret Sharing Approach with Cheater Prevention based on QR Code

QR barcodes are used extensively due to their beneficial properties, including small tag, large data capacity, reliability, and high-speed scanning. However, the private data of the QR barcode lacks adequate security protection. In this article, we design a secret QR sharing approach to protect the private QR data with a secure and reliable distributed system. The proposed approach differs from related QR code schemes in that it uses the QR characteristics to achieve secret sharing and can resist the print-and-scan operation. The secret can be split and conveyed with QR tags in the distribution application, and the system can retrieve the lossless secret when authorized participants cooperate. General browsers can read the original data from the marked QR tag via a barcode reader, and this helps reduce the security risk of the secret. Based on our experiments, the new approach is feasible and provides content readability, cheater detectability, and an adjustable secret payload of the QR barcode.