The staunch proprietary position on what China calls its Wired Authentication and Privacy Infrastructure (WAPI)–implemented on Dec. 1 as part of the nations GB 15629.11-2003 Wi-Fi standard–caught the wireless-LAN industry off-guard. The ruling means that any Wi-Fi chip or system imported into China or manufactured there for domestic use must employ the WAPI encryption scheme, which is incompatible with IEEE 802.11. The standard was created by the China Broadband Wireless Internet Protocol Standards (BWIPS) group, and no details of the encryption algorithm have been disseminated to non-Chinese chip makers (although Intel Corp. said that its reviewing a copy of the spec).
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