Re: Propietary WAPI Wi-Fi protocol going to be mandated by China

From: Michael Brown (see_at_signature.below)
Date: 03/06/04 

Date: Sat, 6 Mar 2004 20:17:17 +1300

George Ou wrote:
> "Michael Brown" <see@signature.below> wrote in message
> news:hG82c.3293$Nc3.53804@news.xtra.co.nz...
>> George Ou wrote:
>>> I hear no body outside China really knows what the WAPI
>>> specification is suppose to be. Supposedly, it is going to use EC
>>> crypto. I also hear that the communist spooks have had their hand
>>> in it and there may be some backdoors placed in the specification.
>>> Obviously, it would be difficult to compete in a market where
>>> you're mandated to use a standard you know little about. The other
>>> disturbing thing is, I'm reading that the US does not intend to
>>> bring a WTO case against this.
>>
>> <dons abstestos suit>
>>
>> The lawyers are all probably too busy trying to figure out how to
>> defend the multitude of trade barriers that the US has :)
>>
>> <leaves the thread hurredly>
>
> You seem to forget that this doesn't just affect US companies. It's
> all countries outside of China.

<re-enters the thread>

Of course. I never said it was a good or anything. I personally think that
one of four things will happen (in order of likliness):
(1) It will be reverse engineered and some loophole used by a firm somewhere
in the world to use it without license fees, followed by many other
companies using the same trick
(2) The licensors will produce "black box" chips that implement the
algorithm, which will then be bolted on to existing wi-fi designs for
minimal extra cost (heck, just about all these things are produced in
Taiwan/China anyhow ...)
(3) Noone will take up the offer, and the China will be forced to backtrack
(unlikely, see #2)
(4) It will be reverse engineered, broken, and the China crypto agency will
be the laughing stock of the world

> As for your insinuation of US
> barriers, the US has among the lowest tariffs and smallest trade
> barriers of any country.

You might find
http://www.independent.org/tii/news/031114Dillon.html
an interesting read.

Currently, New Zealand's exports to the US have significant tariffs and/or
quotas on lamb, beef, steel, sugar, dairy products (butter, cheese, and milk
powder in particular), wood, and many other less significant tarrifs/quotas.
The US also spends over $US18bn a year in agricultural producer subsidies,
and is planning to spend an additional $US180bn in this area over the next
10 years. They also had sustantial export subsidies in the past, but I'm not
sure of their current value.

To my knowledge, New Zealand has no import quotas (though I'm sure there's
an obscure one somewhere just to be annoying). Similarly for producer and
export subsidies (both the level and the obscure-one-hiding somewhere). I'm
not sure of the current average tariff, but it is less than 0.7% (this
figure is before the end of the major reductions in tarriffs that NZ did a
few years ago). Most of this comes from petrolium products and clothing, the
latter to be removed completely by 2006.

Of course, there are many countries with higher barriers than the US, but
the US certainly isn't what I'd call a leader in the free trade stakes.
There is an always-quoted economic index in this area (market freeness), but
I can't for the life of me remember its name. What I can remember is that
the US was not in the top 10.

<leaves the thread for good this time>

[...] 

--
Michael Brown
www.emboss.co.nz : OOS/RSI software and more :)
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