WAPI is an acronym for WLAN Authentication and Privacy Infrastructure. It is a wireless transmission protocol like infrared, Bluetooth, GPRS, CDMA1X, etc. It is only different from them in that it is a transmission protocol in wireless local area network (WLAN), which is more similar to the current 802.11B transmission protocol. So why standardize on a transport protocol?
We know that different transmission protocols transmit packets between more than two electronic devices using different principles and means of realization, most of them are not compatible, if you do not develop a wireless transmission protocol standards, the versatility of the wireless electronic devices will be greatly restricted, for example, your laptop may be able to access the Internet wirelessly in the place of the A, but to the place of B, may be due to the transmission protocols, and the wireless network will not be able to access the Internet. In addition, if you are using the same transmission protocol for all wireless products, then your laptop can easily access the Internet wherever you go, as long as there is a WLAN signal.
Second, what is the difference between WAPI and the current 802.11B?
There are many kinds of WLAN transmission protocols, including 802.11A, 802.11B, 802.11G, and so on, among which 802.11B is the most popular and popular, and most of the WLAN products, including Centrino and Lenovo's newest associated computers, use the 802.11B transmission protocol, which was developed by WI-FI, a U.S. nonprofit organization. It is developed and certified by the U.S. non-profit WI-FI organization, while WAPI is recognized by the IEEE Registration Authority authorized by ISO/IEC, which is a different organization and naturally different in nature. The biggest difference is that the security encryption technology is different: WAPI uses a security protocol called "Wireless LAN Authentication and Privacy Infrastructure (WAPI)", while 802.11B uses "Wired Enhanced Privacy (WEP)" security protocol. "
Three of these protocols are used in 802.11B.
Third, why do we need to develop WAPI standards?
1. For security reasons. We know that the state's secrets are the highest confidentiality, it will directly damage the interests of the entire country and the nation if it is leaked out, the consequences will be unimaginable. But for the wireless LAN, on the contrary, in terms of security is very fragile, because most of the current wireless network products are used 802.11B as a wireless transmission protocol, the advantages of this protocol is that the transmission rate can reach 11M, and the wired LAN transmission speed is similar, and the coverage area up to 100 meters. But "the success is also Hexiao, the failure is also Hexiao". It is its fast transmission speed and wide coverage that makes it very vulnerable in terms of security. Because the data in the transmission process are exposed to the air, it is easy to be ulterior motives to intercept data packets, although, 3COM, Annette and other foreign manufacturers have developed a series of security solutions for 802.11B, but in general is not satisfactory, and its core technology in the hands of other countries, since they can be developed to have a certain way to crack, so in terms of security into the The WLANs are a major concern for both government and commercial users.
WAPI is not afraid of foreigners using WLAN to steal national or commercial confidential information because the core technology of encryption is in the hands of the relevant departments of China, and its encryption technology is more advanced than that of 802.11B. WAPI adopts elliptic curve cryptographic algorithms approved by the Office of the State Cryptography Administration Committee for public key systems and packet cryptographic algorithms approved by the Office of the State Cryptography Administration Committee for secret key systems, which realizes the authentication of devices. WAPI uses the elliptic curve cryptographic algorithm approved by the Office of the National Cryptography Administration and the packet cryptographic algorithm approved by the secret key system, which realizes the identification, link authentication, access control and encrypted protection of user information in the wireless transmission. In addition, WAPI is divided into single-point and centralized application modes, which can completely reverse the status quo that multiple security mechanisms coexist and are incompatible with each other in WLAN, and fundamentally solve the security and compatibility problems. Therefore, our mandatory requirement for relevant commercial organizations to implement WAPI standards can more effectively protect the security of data.
2. Consideration of interests. China is a developing country with a booming economy, and many of its products have a huge space for development, especially high-tech products. However, in the past, China has lost a lot of opportunities in high-tech products, due to a very small number of independent core technology and their own industry standard products, resulting in a rather passive situation: DVD to be charged by foreigners a large number of royalties, GPRS, CDMA1X and so on, the standards are in the hands of foreigners, we can only obediently will be a large amount of money to give the others to buy other people's standards, and they are like a "substitute" for others. We can only obediently give large sums of money to others to buy other people's standards, and they are like a "part-time" workers, can only go to the CEO, to help people assemble products. Therefore, some people say that "first-class enterprises sell standards, second-class enterprises sell technology, third-class enterprises sell products".
But now the opportunity has come, WLAN (Wireless Local Area Network) is a new thing in China, and the development momentum is rapid. To integrate the wireless module of the Centrino laptop sales, it seems to be good, I was in a famous product guide site in the laptop conducted a survey, found that the Centrino laptop variety is the most, up to 14 pages, followed by the P4-M, for 10 pages, P-M for 3 pages, P4 of 2 pages. However, there are only more than 800 wireless LAN hotspots in China, and the users who use WLAN, although not a lot, are growing relatively fast.
China is now developing its own WLAN transmission protocol standard, which will achieve great economic benefits in the long run. In addition, as of now, some of our companies also because of WAPI and get a lot of benefits, because all the wireless LAN equipment sold in China to follow this WAPI standard encryption technology was transferred to 11 domestic manufacturers, including Lenovo, Huawei, Neusoft, etc., free of charge, which means that foreign manufacturers of the product if you want to enter China, you must look for the cooperation of these 11 vendors, only then This means that if foreign manufacturers want to enter China, they must find these 11 manufacturers to cooperate with them before they have a chance.
Fourth, what are the benefits of WAPI for individual users?
For individual users, the biggest benefit of WAPI is to make their laptops safer from now on, because WLAN is completely exposed in mid-air when transmitting data, and the signal covers a wide range, so if the security is not good, the legal user's data can be easily intercepted by illegal users and cracked. At the same time, illegal users can also disguise themselves as legitimate users and use network resources with legitimate users***, resulting in losses for legitimate users.
In North America, where 802.11B-based WLANs are very popular, many computer geeks try to intercept and decode the wireless signals of legitimate users with easy-to-use cans, so that they can enjoy the network resources of legitimate users for free. This is a great way to get the most out of your PC's operating system, and it's a great way to get the most out of your computer's operating system," he said. "We've been working on this for a long time now, and we're excited to see how it works," he said.
Additionally, device interconnectivity is an issue that operators must consider. Currently, although many vendors' products claim to have passed wi-fi compatibility tests, the security solutions proposed and adopted by each vendor are different. For example, Anet (AT-WR2411 wireless card) provides a multi-level security system, including spread spectrum coding and encryption technology, and secure information is encrypted by 40- and 128-bit Wired Equivalent Privacy (WEP) encryption methods; whereas 3Com's wireless card, if used in conjunction with the 3Com 11 Mbps Wireless LAN Access Point 6000, the 3Com wireless card, when used with the 3Com 11 Mbps WLAN Access Point 6000, can use the advanced Dynamic Secure Link technology, which, unlike the *** Enjoy Key scheme, automatically generates a 128-bit encryption key for each session.
In this way, the lack of a unified standard for security solutions results in different WLAN devices not being able to interoperate with each other when security features are enabled, which can result in extremely complex device management for the operator and the need to develop different user management features for different security solutions, leading to a significant increase in operation and maintenance costs and not helping to protect investments, while users, because of their inability to roam between different secure APs ( Access Point), and reduce customer satisfaction, but also will often make the user's device compatibility problems.
V. Is WAPI compliant with WTO regulations?
The answer is yes. An important agreement of the World Trade Organization - the Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade (WTO/TBT) stipulates that WTO member states can for their own safety, health, environmental protection and other legitimate goals, in line with the WTO General Agreement on the premise of the relevant standards and international guidelines to modify or develop their own new technical regulations, standards and other related documents. As we all know, WAPI is designed to strengthen the security of wireless networks, in line with the above WTO rules.
Sixth, China's introduction of WAPI standards in the world has had much impact?
China's official release of WAPI on May 12, 2003, in order to let the industry know that China is about to implement the new standard, the Ministry of Information Industry, the National Standards Committee and other eight ministries and commissions in Beijing in July 2003 jointly held a powerful publicity and promotional activities, the promotion of that should be said to be in the establishment of a national standard in the history of the rare. But at that time the attention of this new standard is not much, especially with this standard is closely related to the multinational corporations is deaf, until recently WAPI has received widespread attention, which of course is due to the multinational corporations of China's lack of standards due to insufficient attention, and do not take it for granted that it is a matter of fact, until close to the relationship between their own interests in the imminent mandatory implementation of the WAPI only really feel the pressure of the existence of The first step is to make sure that you are aware of what is going on and that you are aware of it.
The real cause of WAPI's widespread attention is the announcement made twice in just five days by China's three major government departments: on November 26, China's state-owned General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine (AQSIQ) and the National Standardization Administration (NSA) issued the "Announcement on the Implementation of Mandatory National Standards for Wireless LANs (WAPI)"; and on December 1, the NSA issued the "Announcement on the Implementation of Mandatory National Standards for WLANs (WAPI)". "; December 1, the State Certification and Accreditation Administration responded to the previous announcement, "June 1, 2004 onwards, the implementation of mandatory certification of wireless LAN products."
On December 4, the Wall Street Journal reported that "China's Encryption Standard for Wireless Technology Sparks Industry Panic," which has since led to more and more panicked media coverage. on December 9, Paul Nikolich - a former wireless network international standard-setter IEEE802 and member chairman of the Metropolitan Metropolitan Area Network Standards Committee - sent a letter to Li Zhonghai, director of China's Standardization Administration, and Wang Xudong, minister of the Ministry of Information Industry, in which he warned that "mandatory enforcement of the new standard would have a major impact on the market for wireless networking products and split the global market in two; and restricting the sale of products based on the 802.11 standard in China will narrow the range of choices available to users when purchasing products, thereby increasing the cost of wireless networking equipment."
Unlike the collective silence of multinationals in July, European vendors such as Philips, Langtone Global, and Thomson have made overtures to the Chinese government, saying that they "will understand and support China's new national standard for WLANs" and that they will launch products that comply with the standard as soon as possible. Meanwhile, Dell is getting busy. "Dell is studying the new standard." A senior source at Dell China said the company expects to suspend shipments of products affected by this policy to China at the end of the six-month grace period.
In addition, according to Dennis Eaton, chairman of the Wi-fi Alliance, the Wi-fi Alliance has also sent representatives to engage with several Chinese government departments, who are having preliminary discussions about how the new standard will be interpreted and how the Chinese government plans to implement it.
VII. What resistance has WAPI encountered in its rollout?
The United States is the largest supplier of wireless networking products, and most of the brands of wireless networking products sold in our market are American, such as the familiar 3COM, Cisco, Trend, Avaya, and so on. Therefore, the implementation of the WAPI standard for the interests of the United States will cause the greatest impact. Because according to the standard, foreign network equipment suppliers must obtain a WAPI agreement license through a production cooperation agreement with one of the 11 Chinese companies designated by the Chinese government (which includes Lenovo, Huawei, etc.), while domestic Chinese companies competing with foreign network equipment vendors do not need to obtain a WAPI license like foreign companies.
As a result, if foreign network equipment suppliers are unable to find a partner in China, they may be shut out of the WLAN product market in mainland China, which is a very unfavorable situation for foreign (mainly US) network equipment suppliers. Therefore, the biggest resistance to the launch of WAPI in China is from the United States. The United States not only sent people to lobby China to give up this standard, and its government has also intervened in the debate.
But will our country compromise? I think "no", because we have missed a lot of opportunities to excel in the field of high-tech, now, WLAN is a very good, great opportunity, if our country and then miss the words I am afraid that it is really difficult to have a "turnaround" the day, and, in the past, we have been affected by the lack of their own standards and core technology. We are not subject to their own standards and core technologies of the gas is enough, therefore, I believe that not only will not give up this standard, and can foresee similar standards will be more and more, because China has been strong.
VIII, WAPI will make your Centrino notebook can not "Centrino"?
As we all know, Intel's Centrino notebooks have the advantage of realizing low efficacy and wireless Internet access on the basis of basically no performance degradation, but Intel did not take low efficacy as the main selling point in its publicity, and took its wireless function as the main selling point, hitting the "wireless you unlimited" tagline and spending $300 million to promote his The advertisement slogan "wireless you unlimited", and spent 300 million dollars to promote his "selling point", but, before this notebook and PDA manufacturers have been equipped with inexpensive wireless cards and corresponding chipsets in their products integrated wireless network function. Intel ignored this fact and took the approach of mandating the use of its Centrino chips rather than providing wireless chipsets to manufacturers to promote its wireless business.
So are Centrino's wireless modules really superior to third-party products from specialized wireless vendors? The answer is obvious, and as AMD Chairman and American Semiconductor Association President Sanders rightly points out, the fundamental purpose of Centrino is to muddy the waters of "true innovation" and to try to control all the components of the PC architecture, and then later on, to keep imposing inferior technology on its partners and users. The fundamental purpose of Centrino is to muddy the waters of "true innovation" and to try to control all the components of the PC architecture, and then to impose inferior technology on partners and users. This shows that Intel is clearly looking at the huge potential market for wireless LANs in China before placing this "bet".
Currently, Centrino notebooks are widely sold in China, and the WAPI standard is not compatible with the 802.11B used by Centrino. The introduction of the WAPI standard will undoubtedly have a huge impact on the sales of Centrino notebooks, although Intel's representative pointed out that Centrino's notebooks can comply with this regulation within the period of time because its Centrino products can continue to ship through June, and we are in contact with the industry and the Chinese government to further understand the new product requirements during the transition period. But how does Intel resolve this issue? There's no answer as of yet.
So, will your Centrino laptop be useless after next June? The answer is no. Because the state regulations to next June after the ban on the production, sale, import of non-WAPI wireless network products, but did not say that the ban on the use of these products, most of the current wireless network products are still the same with the Centrino 802.11B protocol. The WAPI standard is only now beginning to be implemented, WAPI products from the development of the market is estimated to be at least a year's time, and most WLAN hotspots are not expected to change the existing equipment into WAPI products at once, so I think, even if Intel did not solve the WAPI problem well, your Centrino laptop is still at least a year and a half in the future the normal use of its wireless Internet function.
Nine, WAPI is coming, which laptops do not buy?
1. Try to buy a non-Centrino laptop. The Centrino laptop is using the 802.11B wireless transmission protocol, which is not compatible with the WAPI wireless transmission protocol that is mandatory for all commercial organizations in China, which means that all of our wireless network devices are using the WAPI transmission protocol, the Centrino laptop may not be able to achieve wireless Internet access, so I don't recommend consumers to buy a laptop that is not compatible with the WAPI protocol.
Of course, if you're a fan of the Centrino technology, I recommend that you buy a laptop with Centrino's Pentium M processor and chipset (the 855 series), so that you can get the Centrino laptop's low efficacy, low heat, and power-saving advantages, but also not subject to the limitations of the WiFi protocols, and the price is also cheaper.
2. Try not to buy a laptop with a wireless LAN card. Currently on the market with a wireless LAN card laptop usually have two kinds: one is with a wireless LAN card, generally using the 802.11B transmission protocol, the other is with a wireless WAN card, they generally use the GPRS wireless transmission protocol. For the first kind of laptop with wireless LAN card, I don't recommend to buy, because they also use 802.11B wireless transmission protocol, this kind of wireless transmission protocol is the same with the wireless transmission protocol used by the Centrino laptop, so buy this laptop with wireless LAN card and buy Centrino laptop with the same consequences.
As for the second type of laptop with a wireless WAN card, it is not affected by WAPI because GPRS is a wireless WAN transmission protocol, which is a different concept from the wireless LAN transmission protocol, and there will be a big difference in usage. Wireless WAN is not like wireless LAN where users have to organize their own network or can only use it when there is a WLAN hotspot. It is generally provided by wireless communication providers to provide signals and services, such as GPRS in our country by China Mobile to provide signals and services. GPRS coverage is wide, most cities in our country can receive its signal, but the transmission rate is relatively slow, and the speed of the ordinary 56KMODEM Internet access is similar.
X. WAPI is here, how do you use a laptop?
As WAPI and the current mainstream 802.11B protocol for wireless networking equipment (such as APs, wireless routers, etc.) is not compatible, so I recommend trying not to set up a wireless LAN during this time, but to wait for a period of time to see if the existing wireless networking equipment providers can not be well resolved with the WAPI-compatible issues, because if not resolved, you buy back now the wireless network equipment with a period of time will become waste, very uneconomical.
Eleven, WAPI is too much for domestic enterprises "spoil"?
We know that the world's industry standards are generally developed by enterprises or other non-governmental organizations, such as the USB standard we are familiar with developed by Intel, Bluetooth developed by Ericsson, 802.11B by the non-profit organization WI-FI organization to develop and certify, so it can be said that the development of industry standards should be the development of the market behavior should not be the behavior of the state, now our country is too much "spoiled"? It should be the state behavior, but now China is using the policy to enforce the implementation, and so that the domestic related enterprises can enjoy some benefits, so some people have this concern: WAPI will cause the government of China's high-tech enterprises spoiled, so that these enterprises do not think of progress, lose the competitive power and pressure, and ultimately will lead to make China's WLAN industry retrogression or stagnation.
The author believes that such concerns have some merit, but they are somewhat unfounded. Because China's enterprises are currently relative to Microsoft, Intel and other large multinational corporations, the power is still very thin, if they are directly with them to carry out a one-on-one exchange will be difficult to win, the government to give a certain degree of support for the policy is necessary and important. The WAPI is a standard that does not have a huge impact on the development of enterprises, and our enterprises do not make much profit from it, so we can't talk about "coddling" and "protection".