# Integrating Visual Cryptography for Efficient and Secure Image Sharing on Social Networks
## 1 Introduction  
The rapid advancement of image processing technology and the widespread use of audio and video capture equipment in the Internet of Things (IoT) drive exponential growth in multimedia data in the digital era. Digital images are now a key multimedia information source in work, communication, and personal sharing due to their readability, capacity, and accessibility. They are extensively used in national defense, industry, healthcare, and everyday life. The growth of mobile devices and social media platforms has greatly improved personal and professional experiences [1]. Smart devices are inherently constrained in critical resources including computing power and bandwidth. Security is paramount in preventing unauthorized access and data breaches during the aggregation and transmission of perceptual data. The pervasive interconnection of smart terminals facilitates the collection of vast amounts of data anywhere and anytime. These platforms can record, spread, and share massive images in real time, which has promoted the convergence of the real world and the internet. However, the open network environment alsoprovides great convenience for illegal activities such as data theft, malicious tampering, and intentional dissemination, aggravating the security threat of multimedia content [2]. The widespread adoption of social media platforms has revolutionized image sharing but also introduces critical security challenges [3]. The bandwidth demands and security needs of image data far surpass those of text. While ubiquitous devices simplify image capture and distribution, their resource constraints limit the implementation of robust security. Traditional text-based encryption methods are inadequate for the volume and redundancy inherent in image data, increasing the risk of privacy breaches during transmission and storage [4]. Resource-efficient solutions are crucial for secure image sharing. Balancing the benefits of large-scale data usage with personal privacy is a major obstacle to widespread adoption. Digital images, often containing sensitive information, are vulnerable to interception, tampering, and theft on public networks. Securing image transmission, application, and storage is a key challenge in information security. The limited communication range in sensor networks necessitates multi-hop communication, creating vulnerabilities where malicious nodes can compromise data integrity. Maintaining confidentiality, integrity, and availability during sensitive data transmission is vital. The miniaturization of devices complicates complex encryption, and the lack of unified security mechanisms in complex social networks increases vulnerability to attacks and privacy breaches. Leaked information can lead to significant losses. These resource limitations and security vulnerabilities impede secure image sharing on social networks [5]. Cryptography involves encrypting data before sending and decrypting them on the receiver. Data are encrypted mathematically so that they can only be decrypted by legitimate users [6]. As digital technology evolves, social networks integrate into a vast network encompassing innumerable miniature devices. This enables the provision of integrated sensing and communications services to homes, factories, cities, and governments with smart devices, sensors, and autonomous applications. Before uploading sensing images to the cloud platform, it is important to encrypt and store them. Visual cryptography (VC) is a secret-sharing (SS) scheme that encrypts binary images without complex computations [4; 7]. It divides the secret image into shares, which are then combined by the receiver to unveil the secret. This ensures perfect security without the need for cryptographic expertise. Researchers have created various VC schemes (VCSs) of grayscale and color images based on black-and-white images, maintaining the benefits while ensuring compatibility with earlier research.