[Infowarrior] - China Walks Out of Encryption Meeting

[Richard Forno]

China Walks Out of Encryption Meeting
http://apnews.excite.com/article/20060611/D8I5MPN80.html

Jun 10, 9:06 PM (ET)

By CHRIS HAWKE

BEIJING (AP) - An international dispute over a wireless computing standard
took a bitter turn this past week with the Chinese delegation walking out of
a global meeting to discuss the technology.

The delegation's walkout from Wednesday's opening of a two-day meeting in
the Czech Republic escalated an already rancorous struggle by China to gain
international acceptance for its homegrown encryption technology known as
WAPI. It follows Chinese accusations that a U.S.-based standards body used
underhanded tactics to prevent global approval of WAPI.

"In this extremely unfair atmosphere, it is meaningless for the Chinese
delegation to continue attending the meeting," the Standardization
Administration of China delegation said in a statement carried by the
official Xinhua News Agency.

The U.S.-based group, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers,
denies any impropriety and says China isn't playing by the established
rules.

At stake is a leg-up in technology research and billions of dollars in
licensing fees and component sales for laptops, mobile phones, handheld
computers and other wireless devices that connect to wireless networks
around the world, including hotels, coffee shops and universities.

These gadgets run on networks based on the IEEE's 802.11 standards. The
original standards, however, have security holes that allow digital snoops
to steal data from those who are logged on to the networks.

Members of the IEEE, an open international professional organization, and a
Chinese government-backed group of engineers with military backgrounds, have
developed competing technologies to plug the security holes: for China,
WAPI, for the IEEE, 802.11i.

China had earlier tried to compel Intel and other tech companies to adopt
its WAPI standard domestically, leading to a showdown with Washington that
ended with Beijing backing down last year.

But the push for the Chinese standard persisted and Beijing decided to
follow Washington's advice and put the Chinese standard before the
International Organization for Standardization, or ISO, a world body made up
of representatives from national standardization groups.

In March, delegates representing standard bodies from 25 countries voted in
favor of the IEEE's version over WAPI.

China appealed the ISO decision and demanded an apology from the IEEE which
it accused of "dirty tricks" in lobbying for its standard, Xinhua said.

The Standardization Administration of China, in a statement, accused backers
of the American technology of "a lot of dirty tricks including deception,
misinformation, confusion and reckless charging to lobby against WAPI,"
Xinhua reported.

The Standardization Administration of China declined requests for comment.

The ISO organized the Czech Republic meeting as a follow-up. ISO spokesman
Roger Frost on Thursday refused to comment on the Chinese delegation's
walkout.

The IEEE has called on China to return to the talks and offered to work with
the country on harmonizing the WAPI technology with international standards.

Steve Mills, the chairman of the IEEE Standards Association Standards Board,
said in a statement, China "has lost another valuable opportunity to
constructively discuss the technical merits of the two security amendments."
Instead, Mills said, China continued "to focus its attention on complaints
about the balloting process."