Broadcom is boycotting the Chinese “security” standard. Broadcom’s CEO Alan Ross said Chinese regulations imperil the intellectual property of foreign suppliers by requiring them to share design information with local Chinese firms.
According to the Wi-Fi Alliance, China has mandated that all Wi-Fi equipment sold in the country must support a Chinese-designed data encryption system. That system, the trade group says, is considered a national secret, so foreign suppliers must find partners among 24 authorized Chinese firms.
China’s new Wired Authentication and Privacy Infrastructure (WAPI) is a homegrown proprietary extension to Wi-Fi that only a handful of Chinese manufacturers have access to. Equipment made and sold in China after Dec. 1, 2003, must have WAPI support, and chips must be made in China.
WiFiNetNews thinks there’s a backdoor
I have assumed all along, and see no reason to doubt, that the WAPI standard contains backdoor technology that will allow China to monitor any communications sent over “secure” links. Given the propensity for Chinese government monitoring of general Internet activity specifically, and warnings from security firms about purchasing technology designed in China that could contain embedded corporate espionage tools, this isn’t so much speculation as a high probability.
