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DAILY NEWS AND INFORMATION
FOR THE GLOBAL GRID COMMUNITY /
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Breaking News -
Networking:
Chinese Security Standard Could
Fracture Wi-Fi, Says IEEE
The Standardisation Administration of China announced the adoption of
China's
WLan standard, called GB15629.11-2003, in May.
WLan equipment sold in China had to comply with the standard from Dec. 1. A
transition period has, however, been granted that extends the compliance
deadline for some WLan products until June 1.
The Chinese WLan standard is similar in many ways to IEEE's 802.11 wireless
networking standard -- commonly known as Wireless Fidelity or Wi-Fi -- but it
has one crucial difference: it uses a different security protocol, called WLan
Authentication and Privacy Infrastructure (WAPI). WAPI is not part of the
802.11 standard, which relies instead on Wired Equivalent Privacy.
The existence of two different standards for WLans, one for China and one
for
the rest of the world, could cause the market for wireless networking
equipment to splinter in two, according to Paul Nikolich, chairman of the IEEE
802 local and metropolitan area network standards committee.
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