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 <iana@iana.org> 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 <iana@iana.org>. 6 February 2003 - Last day for comments. 10 February 2003 (Monday) - Reference Day (see above). 11 February 2003 (Tuesday) - Selection Day (see above).
