Re: Question on ECML address country code usage

[Steve Schear <schear@lvcm.com>]

At 06:53 AM 8/22/2002 -0400, you wrote:
> Lauri,
>
> There are about 550 national jurisdictions contained in, or surrounded by,
> the United States. ISO 3166 (aka "country codes") provides few code points
> for distinguishing code points in North America.
>
> As a protocol design issue, using two octets to contain fewer than 300
> distinct data values, and mandating failure, or implementation-specific
> extension, for transactions taking place within the jurisdictions of Indian
> (not India) governments (but not Pitcairn's Island or any of the other odd
> bits in ISO 3166), is both untidy and an overspecification.
>
> We aren't in the buisness of deciding what is a state.
>
> We don't need to pay a great deal of attention to the claims of others who
> are in that business. Very likely, their decisions are political, and not
> technical, and of necessity, not correct.

Going forward its also likely that private currencies, probably issued by 
corporations, and denominated by some sort of derivative will become a reality.

steve