Subject: Protocol and Schedule for Selecting IDNA Prefix

From: The Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 30 Jan 2003 17:12:37 -0500

This document sets forth a protocol by which the IANA proposes to 
select a two-character code to be used as the first two characters of 
the ACE prefix referred to as "IESG--" in Section 5 of 
draft-ietf-idn-idna-14.txt. It also specifies the schedule proposed for 
the selection.

Comments on this document should be sent to <[email-masked]> no later 
than Thursday, 6 February 2003.

A. Proposed Protocol

The following steps are proposed to select the two-character code:

1. The code will be selected from among a subset of the entries on 
the ISO 3166-1:1997, clause 8.1.3 User-assigned alpha-2 code elements: 
AA, QM to QZ, XA to XZ, and ZZ.

2. An eligible subset of that list of 42 entries will be determined 
by eliminating the following codes due to their use, in one or more 
top-level domain zone files that have been reviewed, as the first two 
characters of second-level domain labels that have hyphens in their 
third and fourth character positions: 
AA, QM to QZ, XA, XZ, and ZZ.

3. This leaves the following subset of twenty-four candidate codes: 
XB, XC, XD, XE, XF, XG, XH, XI, XJ, XK, XL, XM, XN, XO, XP, XQ, XR, XS, 
XT, XU, XV, XW, XX, and XY.

4. A random selection will be made from among the twenty-four 
candidates. The algorithm for the random selection will generally 
follow that stated in RFC 2777.

5. A message will be sent to the IETF Announce list to announce 
the selected code. This message will be sent immediately after the 
selection is made on the Selection Day, according to the schedule 
described below.

First, the candidates will be arranged in an ordered list as follows:

1. XB 7. XH 13. XN 19. XT 
2. XC 8. XI 14. XO 20. XU 
3. XD 9. XJ 15. XP 21. XV 
4. XE 10. XK 16. XQ 22. XW 
5. XF 11. XL 17. XR 23. XX 
6. XG 12. XM 18. XS 24. XY

Next, the trading volume of twelve stocks on the Reference Day (see 
schedule below), as listed in the U.S. National Edition of the Wall 
Street Journal on the Selection Day (see schedule below), will be used 
to generate a key string in the manner specified on page 5 of RFC 2777. 
The twelve stocks are:

(NYSE) IMS Hlth RX 
(NYSE) IL Tool ITW 
(NYSE) IntRectifr IRF 
(NYSE) IBM IBM 
(NYSE) IntPaper IP 
(NYSE) Interpublic IPG 
(NASDAQ) Inamed IMDC 
(NASDAQ) Informatica INFA 
(NASDAQ) Inktomi INKT 
(NASDAQ) i2 Tch ITWO 
(NASDAQ) IDEC Pharm IDPH 
(NASDAQ) Intel INTC

Although the IANA's investigation indicates that all copies of the U.S. 
National Edition (on any day other than a Wednesday) of the Wall Street 
Journal should be identical, to eliminate any ambiguity the IANA will 
purchase a copy, which will be authoritative, on the morning of the 
Selection Day at a local store.

In the event that the trading volume of any of the above twelve stocks 
is not reported in that paper, the value 0 will be used for that stock. 
In the event that more than six of the stocks then have a zero value, 
the selection will be deemed invalid and re-run in a manner decided 
according to the circumstances.

A key string will be constructed with the numeric trading volumes of the 
twelve stocks (denoted in 100s and not including any 
thousands-separating punctuation) according to page 5 of RFC 2777. 
An MD5 hash [RFC 1321] of the string, prefixed and suffixed with a zero 
byte, will be calculated. That value will be divided by twenty-four, 
and the remainder of the division plus one will be the position of the 
selected candidate in the ordered list above. (Note: The Wall Street 
Journal currently reports share volumes in 100s. Thus, a volume of 
7,660,900 shares would be reported in the Wall Street Journal as 
"76609" and would be represented as "76609" within the key.)

B. Proposed Schedule

The following schedule is proposed for the selection process:

30 January 2003 - Protocol and Schedule published, including to IETF 
Announce list. Comments invited to <[email-masked]>.

6 February 2003 - Last day for comments.

10 February 2003 (Monday) - Reference Day (see above).

11 February 2003 (Tuesday) - Selection Day (see above).