Liberty's Blog

China walks out of wireless LAN security talks

Its a long arduous tasks developing and standardizing on how things will work. Innternational committees flesh out standards that will hopefully work internationally. Because of such standards we have cell phones that can operate internationally, and of course our beloved internet. The world of hubs, routers and switches are very dependendant un such standardization. Wireless standards are evolving quickly from 802.11b to 802.11g to the proposed IEEE's 802.11i, which will improve wireless security among other things. So, China walks out of wireless LAN security talks

China walked out of a wireless standards meeting this week, accusing the International Organization for Standardization of favoring the IEEE's 802.11i ANSI-certified wireless LAN security scheme over its own controverisal proposal, EE Times has learned.

The gambit came after China's Wireless Authentication and Privacy Infrastructure (WAPI) security scheme was withdrawn and placed on a slower track by the ISO. This week's meeting in Sulzbach, Germany, included the ISO/IEC JTC1 SC6 WG1 working group created to resolve the dispute.

China initially agreed last year to refrain from making its WAPI security scheme mandatory for wireless LAN equipment in China. It then approached ISO with a fast-track submission in an effort to make WAPI an international security standard. The 802.11i proposal is also on the fast-track for ISO approval, possibly by April. Until this week, the ISO group was focused on whether or not both 802.11i and WAPI should be cemented as enhanced — but optional — security standards.

However, sources said tempers flared when China's original fast-track submission, designated 1N7506 of China National Standard GB15629.11 (WAPI), was withdrawn from consideration. It was replaced by a revised submission, designated 6N12687, that removed the China proposal from the organization's fast-track approval process.

Why are the Chinese so adamnet about including their proprietary, closed sourced garbage into the standard? I suspect it isn't just about collecting residuals, but its more about spying on their citizens and perhaps even about spying on us (American Industry).

Electronics Weekly has this to say:

We've been in constant contact with Chinese officials since the beginning of December on this issue, an Intel spokesman said. And while Intel has been working to sway the policy makers, the semiconductor giant has also been
studying the WAPI standard. We have determined we are not able to produce
products by the June 1 deadline that meet our quality standards, and we don't
have a schedule or roadmap to produce those products, the spokesman said.
That means Intel will be unable to sell its Centrino chipset in China. The company
will still be able to sell its Pentium M microprocessor and any of its other non-wireless products. China is the largest country in Intel's Asia Pacific business and is a significantly important market, the spokesman said. Although technical reasons are preventing Intel from making the June 1 deadline, the spokesman said, a number of side issues also exist. For example, only portions of the WAPI spec have been made public. Only Chinese companies know the full spec, and international companies are required to work with local companies if they want to sell products that meet the spec. To do that it's necessary to share intellectual property, but China offers no protection for IP.
In addition, Intel believes that open standards are the proper approach to technology products. As a matter of philosophy, we continue to believe that proprietary closed standards specific to one country are the wrong business model, the Intel spokesman said. We believe that global standards are fundamental to making
wireless LANs a viable technology worldwide. Intel is not the first company to
baulk at a proprietary Chinese standard for wireless technology. The Semiconductor Industry Association last month called upon China to withdraw the requirement.

This a a further demonstration of how China doesn't play well with others in a global economic games.

posted by Liberty @ 1:31 PM