Using multi-ringed shadow image of visual cryptography to hide more secret messages

In this paper, we introduce a novel multi-ringed visual cryptography technique to hide secret messages on cylindrical surfaces of shares. Different secrets were hidden on the surface by fixed-angle segmentation. Four different secret messages were hidden such that the first two secrets can be revealed by stacking the hollow cylinders and rotating at a fixed angle and the next two, revealed by flipping one shadow image, stacked together and rotating at a fixed angle. The proposed method is novel for its simple hiding, data security and easy implementation.