Covert and multilevel visual cryptographic schemes

Visual cryptography concerns the problem of "hiding" a monochrome image among sets of transparencies, known as shares. These are created in such a fashion that certain sets of shares when superimposed, will reveal the image; while other subsets yield no information. A standard model is the (k, n) scheme, where any k shares will reveal the image, but any k - 1 or fewer shares reveal no information. In this thesis, we explain the basic mechanism for creating shares. We survey the literature and show how to create (k, k) schemes which exist for all k > 2. Then we introduce perfect hash functions, which can be used to construct (k, n) schemes from (k, k) schemes for all 2 < k < n. We introduce generalizations of (k, n) schemes that we call covert cryptographic schemes, and extend this notion to multilevel visual cryptographic schemes. We give conditions for the existence of such schemes, and we conclude with a survey of generalizations.