{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2025,10,12]],"date-time":"2025-10-12T02:24:14Z","timestamp":1760235854071,"version":"build-2065373602"},"reference-count":30,"publisher":"MDPI AG","issue":"10","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2021,10,8]],"date-time":"2021-10-08T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1633651200000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"funder":[{"DOI":"10.13039\/501100006245","name":"Ministry of Science and Technology","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","award":["MOST 109-2221-E-005 -057 -MY2"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["MOST 109-2221-E-005 -057 -MY2"]}],"id":[{"id":"10.13039\/501100006245","id-type":"DOI","asserted-by":"publisher"}]}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["Symmetry"],"abstract":"<jats:p>The information technique has developed rapidly. The technique of QR codes is widely applied in our daily life, and the mechanism is suitable to share data. A QR code uses symmetric encryption to store and retrieve data efficiently. However, the security issues of QR codes are seldom discussed by the wider community. Moreover, if the sender wishes only the authorized participant to attain the private data which are shared, the data must be encrypted. Furthermore, we do not know who should be censured when problems arise. In view of this, to maintain the integrity and the confidentiality of information security, this paper proposed a new puzzle-based data sharing scheme to share the private information safely. Firstly, we generated the digital signature of the information, then applied the random grids algorithm to obtain the shares. Then, we disarrayed the shares which contain the information and the digital signature with a puzzle-based encoding method. Afterwards, we concealed them into the cover QR codes. With the QR code mechanism of error correction, the marked QR code remain meaningful. Finally, we could send marked QR codes via transmission. The receiver could use XOR operation to obtain the private information after solving the puzzles and verify whether it was tampered with by the digital signature. The proposed system can recover the lossless data and protect them from being divulged. To deal with the potential hazard of transmission in a public environment, there are more and more studies on data hiding and image authentication.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3390\/sym13101896","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2021,10,11]],"date-time":"2021-10-11T01:59:47Z","timestamp":1633917587000},"page":"1896","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/mdpi_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":3,"title":["A Puzzle-Based Data Sharing Approach with Cheating Prevention Using QR Code"],"prefix":"10.3390","volume":"13","author":[{"given":"Chwei-Shyong","family":"Tsai","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Management Information Systems, National Chung Hsing University, Taichung 402, Taiwan"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Hsin-Liang","family":"Chen","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Management Information Systems, National Chung Hsing University, Taichung 402, Taiwan"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Hsien-Chu","family":"Wu","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Language Center, National Chin-Yi University of Technology, Taichung 411, Taiwan"},{"name":"Department of Computer Science and Information Engineering, National Taichung University of Science and Technology, Taichung 404, Taiwan"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-7873-4018","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Josh Jia-Ching","family":"Ying","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Management Information Systems, National Chung Hsing University, Taichung 402, Taiwan"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]}],"member":"1968","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2021,10,8]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref_1","first-page":"78","article-title":"Evaluating the Effects of Symmetric Cryptography Algorithms on Power Consumption for Different Data Types","volume":"11","author":"Minaam","year":"2010","journal-title":"Int. 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