Developing a Visual Cryptography Tool for Arabic Text

Abstract

Over the years, cryptography has been used to encrypt secret data. A new version of cryptography, entitled visual cryptography (VC), has been introduced. This approach is a simple and secure way to allow the secret sharing of images without any cryptographic computations or the use of encryption or decryption keys. Although various studies have been undertaken with regard to improving the VC technique, there has not yet been a study attempting to improve the VC technique for Arabic text although there are thousands of websites that provide services in Arabic serving countries in which Arabic is spoken as a first language. This paper, therefore, develops a tool that can encrypt/decrypt images of Arabic text using the VC approach. We experimentally evaluate the usability aspect. The results indicate the general suitability of the developed tool. This tool sheds light in designing practical tools for electronic voting, anti-phishing, Captcha, watermarking, biometric privacy, online payment systems, and digital signature in the Arabic environment.