computer science

WLAN Authentication and Privacy Infrastructure

WLAN Authentication and Privacy Infrastructure is a computer science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand WLAN Authentication and Privacy Infrastructure rather than just read about it. In short: WLAN Authentication and Privacy Infrastructure (WAPI) is a Chinese National Standard for Wireless LANs (GB 15629.11-2003). Although it was allegedly designed to operate on top of Wi-Fi, compatibility with the security protocol used by the 802.11 wireless networking standard developed by the IEEE is in dispute.

Key takeaways

WLAN Authentication and Privacy Infrastructure belongs to computer science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect WLAN Authentication and Privacy Infrastructure to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of WLAN Authentication and Privacy Infrastructure from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

WLAN Authentication and Privacy Infrastructure (WAPI) is a Chinese National Standard for Wireless LANs (GB 15629.11-2003). Although it was allegedly designed to operate on top of Wi-Fi, compatibility with the security protocol used by the 802.11 wireless networking standard developed by the IEEE is in dispute. Due to the limited access of the standard (only eleven Chinese companies had access), it was the focus of a U.S.–China trade dispute. Following this it was submitted to, and rejected by the ISO. It was resubmitted to ISO in 2010, but was cancelled as a project on 21 November 2011 after being withdrawn by China.

How the standard works

WAPI, which was initiated to resolve the existing security loopholes (WEP) in WLAN international standard (ISO/IEC 8802-11), was issued to be Chinese national standard in 2003. WAPI works by having a central Authentication Service Unit (ASU) which is known to both the wireless user and the access point and which acts as a central authority verifying both. The WAPI standard (draft JTC1/SC6 N14619) allows selection of the symmetric encryption algorithm, either AES or SMS4, which has been declassified in January 2006 and passed evaluation by independent experts.

History

US–China trade dispute In late 2003, the Chinese government announced a policy requiring that wireless devices sold in China include WAPI support and foreign companies wanting access to the Chinese market could produce WAPI-compliant products independently or partner with one of 11 Chinese firms to which the standard was disclosed. This issue became a point of trade discussions between the then United States Secretary of State Colin Powell and his Chinese government equivalent. China agreed to indefinitely postpone implementation of the policy.

ISO rejection The Chinese Standards Association (SAC: Standardization Administration of the People's Republic of China) subsequently submitted WAPI (ISO/IEC JTC1 N7904) to the ISO standards organization for recognition as an international standard, at about the same time as the IEEE 802.11i standard. After much debate related to both process issues and technical issues, the IEC/ISO Secretaries General decided to send the proposals to parallel fast track ballots. In March 2006, the 802.11i proposal was approved and the WAPI proposal was rejected. This result was confirmed at a Ballot Resolution meeting held in June 2006. The result was subject to two appeals by SAC to the ISO/IEC Secretaries General that alleged "unethical" and "amoral" behavior during the balloting process and irregularities during the ballot resolution process. The official Chinese news agency Xinhua said on May 29, 2006, that appeals were filed in April and May 2006 and, the agency said, alleged that the IEEE was involved in "organizing a conspiracy against the China-developed WAPI, insulting China and other national bodies, and intimidation and threats." Xinhua did not make these allegations specific. In July 2006, 802.11i was published as an ISO/IEC standard. WAPI is no longer being considered by ISO/IEC and all appeals have been dismissed. After the preliminary results were announced in March 2006, various press reports from China suggested that WAPI may still be mandated in China. TBT (Technical Barrier to Trade) declarations to the WTO in January 2006 and a statement in June 2006 to ISO/IEC JTC1/SC6, in which SAC said they would not respect the status of 802.11i as an international standard, seemed to support this possibility. However, as of early 2007, the only official Chinese policy related to WAPI is a "government preference" for WAPI in government and government-funded systems. It is unclear how strongly this preference has been enforced, and it seems to have had little effect on the non-government market.

ISO resubmission In 2009, the China NB was encouraged by SC6 to resubmit WAPI to SC6. It was allocated the standard number ISO/IEC 20011 after passing the first stage of balloting. Positive votes and commitments to participate in the standardisation process were received from China, Korea, Czech Republic, Switzerland and Kenya. Negative votes were received from the US and the UK. The US and the IEEE 802.11 Working Group provided numerous detailed comments rebutting the case for standardisation made by the China NB in the New Project proposal. The required comment resolution on the ballot only started in June 2011, with the US, UK, China, Korea and Switzerland NBs and the IEEE 802.11 Working Group all participating. The Swiss NB representative admitted during the process that he was a paid consultant to IWNCOMM, the Chinese source of the WAPI technology. The Kenya and Czech NBs did not participate in the comment resolution process or in any other discussions related to WAPI after the close of the ballot in early 2010. The comment resolution process failed after agreement could not be established on a variety of fundamental issues. For example, the China NB continued to insist that WAPI was justified because 802.11 included WEP, which is known to be broken. On the other side, the US NB and the IEEE 802.11 NB noted that WEP-based security had been deprecated in favour of WPA2-based security in IEEE 802.11-2007, and that no one had ever alleged any issues with WPA2-based security. In addition, the IEEE 802.11 WG noted that the functionality offered by WAPI systems was equivalent to only a small subset of the security offered by WPA2-based systems. The China NB eventually withdrew WAPI in October 2011 (document JTC1/SC6 N15030) and the project was formally cancelled by SC6 in February 2012. The reasons for the withdrawal are unclear. The Chinese proponents of WAPI from IWNCOMM were clearly very unhappy when the withdrawal was announced. It has been speculated that Chinese government authorities ordered the withdrawal on the basis that WAPI had failed to be standardised by ISO/IEC after eight years. In addition, despite mandates for WAPI to be implemented in China in Wi-Fi enabled mobile phones and by the three Chinese service providers, it is very rarely used in practice.

… excerpt ends here. Continue reading the full article.

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with WLAN Authentication and Privacy Infrastructure

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what WLAN Authentication and Privacy Infrastructure claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In computer science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to WLAN Authentication and Privacy Infrastructure before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about WLAN Authentication and Privacy Infrastructure ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of WLAN Authentication and Privacy Infrastructure

In research: WLAN Authentication and Privacy Infrastructure appears in computer science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses WLAN Authentication and Privacy Infrastructure in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: WLAN Authentication and Privacy Infrastructure is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Cryptographic protocols, Guobiao standards, Wireless networking standards, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for WLAN Authentication and Privacy Infrastructure outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study WLAN Authentication and Privacy Infrastructure in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what WLAN Authentication and Privacy Infrastructure means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain WLAN Authentication and Privacy Infrastructure out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is WLAN Authentication and Privacy Infrastructure in simple terms?

Why does WLAN Authentication and Privacy Infrastructure matter?

Because it connects several computer science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study WLAN Authentication and Privacy Infrastructure?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on WLAN Authentication and Privacy Infrastructure.