Re: Trying to understand FIPS Compliance vs Selective disclosure

>
> The especially naive bit- I think/presume it's not as easy as just using a
> FIPS compliant signature algorithm on some kind of "hash of hashes"
> (obvious example: a Merkle tree, something like MerkleDisclosureProof2021
> <https://w3c-ccg.github.io/Merkle-Disclosure-2021/>), but despite
> spending some time with the FIPS-186-5 draft, I'm still not clear why this
> should be ruled out.
>

This would have been my answer, so I will be curious to see what others
have to say about it.

FIPS publications offer several different scopes in which it is possible to
comply. As I understand it, all of these possible scopes are focused on the
soundness of cryptographic algorithms. They do cover appropriateness of
algorithms to certain problems, but I don't think selective disclosure is
one of those problems. But I could be wrong.

One gotcha to be aware of is that the term "selective disclosure" is highly
problematic when you're spanning the two audiences of SSI/CCG on one hand,
and US government/NIST/FIPS on the other. This may explain why doing a web
search on the topic isn't very helpful. The only official usage of that
term in US government circles is associated with financial context (e.g.,
the SEC), and in that environment, "selective disclosure" is a dirty word.
Essentially it is the practice of lying by omission when filing financial
reports. Thus I think it is unlikely that you'll ever see that term in a
FIPS publication as a desirable feature. So you'll have to search for it by
other names. (I like the term "progressive disclosure", which comes out of
usability theory and human factors/UX circles, but I doubt FIPS would use
that, either.)