Contrast-optimal k out of n secret sharing schemes in visual cryptography

Visual cryptography and (k, n)-visual secret sharing schemes were introduced by Naor and Shamir in [NaSh1]. A sender wishing to transmit a secret message distributes n transparencies among n recipients, where the transparencies contain seemingly random pictures. A (k, n)-scheme achieves the following situation: If any k recipients stack their transparencies together, then a secret message is revealed visually. On the other hand, if only k - 1 recipients stack their transparencies, or analyze them by any other means, they are not able to obtain any information about the secret message.

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