More anger erupted last week from China over its homegrown WAPI encryption standard for 802.11-based technologies that failed to gain acceptance with the IEEE. The Chinese delegation walked out of the opening of a two-day meeting in the Czech Republic that was scheduled to talk about harmonizing WAPI technology with international standards. The move follows Chinese accusations that the U.S.-based standards body used underhanded tactics to prevent global approval of WAPI. The IEEE has chosen 802.11i as the encryption standard. 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," the Chinese newspaper Xinhua reported. Steve Mills, the chairman of the IEEE Standards Association Standards Board, said in a statement that China "has lost another valuable opportunity to constructively discuss the technical merits of the two security amendments."
To read more about the skirmish over the WAPI encryption standard:
- check out this article from AP