Completion of IANA Selection of IDNA Prefix

[IANA <iana@iana.org>]

Completion of IANA Selection of IDNA Prefix.

On 11 February 2003, the IANA selected "xn--" as the IDNA 
Prefix.  Per our message below, the IANA requested that 
comments be sent no later than 13 February 2003 if there was 
any disagreement with the results.  No comments were received 
regarding the computation described below.

The ACE prefix for IDNA is "xn--".

As stated in number 6 below, the RFC Editor has been notified 
of the selected code.

Thank you,

Internet Assigned Numbers Authority


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Message from 11 February 2003 regarding IANA Selection of IDNA Prefix
*********************************************************************

Results of IANA Selection of IDNA Prefix

As described in section B of the Protocol and Schedule
(see below), today 11 February 2003 (Tuesday), is the
Selection Day.

The IANA followed the steps described in section 4 (see
below).

The twelve stocks and their trading volumes (in 100s) were:

(NYSE) IMS Hlth RX            22157
(NYSE) IL Tool ITW            11795
(NYSE) IntRectifr IRF          5742
(NYSE) IBM IBM                78719
(NYSE) IntPaper IP            16609
(NYSE) Interpublic IPG        34961
(NASDAQ) Inamed IMDC           1567
(NASDAQ) Informatica INFA      4357
(NASDAQ) Inktomi INKT          6085
(NASDAQ) i2 Tch ITWO          37777
(NASDAQ) IDEC Pharm IDPH      18754
(NASDAQ) Intel INTC          524545

These trading volumes have been used to generate a key
string in the manner specified on page 5 of RFC 2777.

The key string is

22157./11795./5742./78719./16609./34961./1567./4357./6085./37777./ 
18754./524545./

The hex value of MD5 is

   BDEC8317C50316D67B688D1C9A34C682

The hex value of MD5 was then divided by eighteen. The remainder
of the division (10) plus one (11) is the position of the
selected candidate in the ordered list below.

According to the ordered list, the selected code is "XN".

1. XB   7. XH  13. XQ
2. XC   8. XJ  14. XR
3. XD   9. XK  15. XT
4. XE  10. XM  16. XW
5. XF  11. XN  17. XX
6. XG  12. XP  18. XY

As stated in section 6 of our message below:

If anyone disagrees with the computation of the result under the
above protocol as announced by the IANA on the Selection Day, please
send a note to <iana@iana.org> no later than the day before the
Notification Day.  The RFC Editor will be notified of the selected code
on the Notification Day (Friday, 14 February 2003).

Thank you,

The Internet Assigned Numbers Authority


************************************************************************

-----Original Message-----
From: IANA [mailto:iana@iana.org]
Sent: Monday, February 10, 2003 2:44 PM
To: idn@ops.ietf.org
Subject: FW: IANA Selection of IDNA Prefix

This document sets forth the protocol by which the IANA will 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 for
the selection.

This document is based on the IANA's proposed Protocol and Schedule
distributed on 30 January 2003 and reflects changes to address
comments received by 6 February 2003.  The IANA thanks Adam Costello
and Simon Josefsson for their comments.

A. Protocol

The following steps will be used 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.  The selection is limited to these
codes because of the following:

   a)  The use of numeric characters, while permitted by the
       Internet-Draft, would create visual ambiguities concerning the
       digits "0", "1", and "5".  (For similar reasons, codes including
       the letters O, I, L, and S are eliminated in step 3.)

   b)  The use of ISO 3166-1 the user-assigned elements removes the
       possibility that the code will duplicate a present or future
       ccTLD code.

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.  Of those codes, XI, XL, XO, and XS are
eliminated due to potential confusion with X1, X1, X0, and X5, and XU
and XV are eliminated due to potential confusion with each other.
This leaves eighteen candidate codes.

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

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

1. XB   7. XH  13. XQ
2. XC   8. XJ  14. XR
3. XD   9. XK  15. XT
4. XE  10. XM  16. XW
5. XF  11. XN  17. XX
6. XG  12. XP  18. 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), in the order stated above, 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 eighteen, 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.)
The selection mechanism uses the reference implementation in RFC 2777
and the reference MD5 implementation from RFC 1321.

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

6. If anyone disagrees with the computation of the result under the
above protocol as announced by the IANA on the Selection Day, please
send a note to <iana@iana.org> no later than the day before the
Notification Day.  The RFC Editor will be notified of the selected code
on the Notification Day.

B. Schedule

The following schedule will be followed 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).

14 February 2003 (Friday) - Notification Day.