QR-3S: A High Payload QR Code Secret Sharing System for Industrial Internet of Things in 6G Networks

The communication in a 6G-enabled network in a box (NIB) needs to meet the characteristics of fast, convenient, and safe. Secret sharing scheme has become a hot topic nowadays due to unconditional security and simple decryption. At the same time, a quick response (QR) code as a popular carrier has been widely applied in various industrial applications because of the data payload and convenience. Thus, the combination of secret sharing and QR code provides a solution by satisfying the requirements of 6G-enabled NIB. In this article, we design a QR code secret sharing scheme with authentication to protect private data and prevent cheater. In this scheme, a secret image is first divided into a series of shadows based on a polynomial, and authentication bits are generated based on the generated shadows. Then shadows and the authentication bits are embedded into the cover QR codes according to the error correction redundancy and the homomorphism of the Reed-Solomon code in the QR code. In addition, the secret can be restored with the qualified shares and the authentication bits could verify the authenticity of the embedded shadows. Compared with existing schemes, the proposed scheme not only guarantees a high capacity but also embeds more authentication bits to improve the authentication ability. In addition, experimental results have demonstrated that the proposed scheme is both robust and secure.