[Cryptography] From Nicaragua to Snowden - why no national standards should be considered in cryptosec

[Ian G]

Long article on why IETF and similar bodies should *not* pander to 
national bodies in adopting encryption algorithms.



http://www.bu.edu/jostl/files/2016/01/21.1_Tobias_Final_web.pdf

III. CHINESE WIRELESS TRANSMISSION STANDARDS AND THEIR COUNTERPARTS The 
standards with which this Note is concerned show the truth behind 
Smoot’s claim that the information technology industry “uses every kind 
of standardization process imaginable.”93 The three relevant Chinese 
standards are WLAN Authentication and Privacy Infrastructure (“WAPI”), 
Ultra HighThroughput WLAN & its counterpart Enhanced Ultra 
High-Throughput WLAN (“UHT/EUHT”), and ZUC – taken together, the 
Encryption Standards. The table below lays out basic information about 
the standards, their applications, and their foreign competition.

The first row of standards94 all pertain to WLAN systems, as is evident 
from the formal names of both WAPI and UHT.95 At its most basic, WLAN 
refers to a system of connecting two or more devices96 without the need 
for wires between them.97 As network connectivity has become an integral 
part of using a computer, wireless networks have grown in number and 
popularity.98 A wireless network allows quick and convenient access to a 
network. A common use of WLAN systems is to connect a laptop to an 
access point for the World Wide Web.99 WLAN can also be used to connect 
a small set of devices (such as a smart phone, laptop, tablet, video 
game console, and television set) into a home multi-media entertainment 
system.100 Instead of wires, WLAN uses radio frequencies to transmit 
data between connected devices.101

802.11 is a set of internationally recognized standards that facilitate 
WLAN connectivity.102 The Institute of Electrical and Electronics 
Engineers (“IEEE”), a formal standards development organization based in 
New York City,103 created 802.11.104 IEEE continually modifies 802.11, 
incorporating new security and transmission techniques.105 In 1999, when 
802.11a was approved by the International Organization for 
Standardization as a formal international standard, it had a maximum 
transfer rate of fifty-four megabits per second.106 The upcoming 
revision, 802.11ad, has a maximum transfer rate of seven gigabits per 
second – almost 130 times as fast.107 Users and businesses benefit from 
faster internet connections. Higher speeds make the Internet more 
economically viable as a business transmission medium, a field once 
dominated by man-carried or animal-carried letters.108 The added 
convenience of radio-enabled wireless networks raises significant 
security issues. Interception of or tampering with radio waves is 
“trivial to anyone with a radio.”109 By intercepting radio waves, an 
unauthorized person can effectively eavesdrop on the other parties, and 
for example, uncover a private password or Social Security Number 
transmitted over the network. An unauthorized person could also tamper 
with the signal and trick other devices into thinking his own system has 
authorization it does not actually have – and here, that person could 
enter private networks, such as a restricted intranet upon which a 
company stores its trade secrets or other private and sensitive 
information.110 Identity thieves often target unsecured wireless 
networks to steal identifying information.111 Early versions of 802.11 
used an encryption scheme known as Wired Equivalent Privacy (“WEP”).112 
WEP was intended to bring to wireless transmissions a level of security 
which would compete with more secure wired transmissions, and thus 
prevent eavesdropping on, and tampering with, private signals.113 Every 
transmission subject to WEP underwent a two-stage process of encryption 
at its point of origin, and the receiver would reverse the process to 
decrypt and access the information.114 The communicating parties shared 
a secret key upon which the entire process relied; without the proper 
key, the information could not be decrypted. 115 However, in 2001, 
researchers discovered significant security flaws in WEP’s encryption 
scheme.116 Thieves and other unauthorized persons could easily exploit 
these flaws to gain access to encrypted transmissions.117 After these 
discoveries, the IEEE 802.11 Task Group on Security “began significant 
changes to WEP” to plug the holes in security.118 These changes 
culminated in the Wi-Fi Protected Access scheme (“WPA”).119 In 2004, the 
IEEE integrated WPA into the 802.11 set of standards as 802.11i.120

The rift between WAPI and 802.11 revolves around the standards’ 
respective handling of security. WAPI is an offshoot of the 
WEP-encrypted versions of 802.11, born of Chinese dissatisfaction with 
the security flaws in WEP.121 The Standardization Administration of 
China (“SAC”) “initially approved WAPI in May 2003 to become effective 
later in December of that year.”122 The core of WAPI is a redone 
security scheme. The Chinese claim that WAPI’s encryption rectifies the 
security deficiencies inherent in WEP.123 A “necessary secret encryption 
algorithm” controls WAPI’s security scheme.124 The Chinese state 
provides only a half-dozen Chinese companies with access to the 
algorithm.125 Any company seeking to integrate WAPI into its radio 
designs would thus have to negotiate with one of those six companies. 
Additionally, 802.11 and WAPI are mutually incompatible.126

During 2003 and 2004, the Chinese government planned to instate WAPI as 
a mandatory standard.127 By June 2004, all WLAN devices would be 
required to support WAPI.128 The United States government formally 
protested the mandatory standard.129 Perhaps more importantly, 
information technology giants Intel, Texas Instruments, and Broadcom 
promised to cease sales of any product affected by WAPI.130 Craig 
Barret, Intel CEO, personally visited Beijing in an attempt to resolve 
the crisis.131 Amid the tension, China agreed to “indefinitely postpone” 
government enforcement of mandatory compliance with WAPI during 
bilateral trade negotiations with the United States.132 However, the 
United States Trade Representative’s 2013 Report on Technical Barriers 
to Trade said that, as of 2011, “China’s Ministry of Industry and 
Information Technology (“MIIT”) remained unwilling to approve any 
Internetenabled mobile handsets or similar hand-held wireless devices 
unless the devices were WAPI-enabled.”133

The UHT/EUHT standards follow in much of the same vein as WAPI. UHT/ 
EUHT are Chinese domestic alternatives to the internationally-accepted 
802.11n standard.134 The Chinese claim that UHT/EUHT can coexist with 
802.11.135 However, because UHT/EUHT both operate on the same frequency 
as their 802.11 counterparts, a device operating on one standard may 
cause considerable interference with the transmissions of a device 
operating on the other standard.136 A European information technology 
standards organization concluded that “adequate coexistence between 
UHT/EUHT standards based devices and devices based on standard 802.11 is 
not possible.”137 The United States Trade Representative has also 
expressed concerns about incompatibility between UHT/EUHT and 802.11.138

  4G LTE differs from the above standards in that it is designed for use 
in mobile smartphones, as opposed to use in laptops or other larger 
devices. 139 The 4G LTE set of standards is developed by the 3rd 
Generation Partnership Project (“3GPP”).140 Although 3GPP is an 
industry-specific standards organization, instead of a general formal 
standards organization like IEEE, 3GPP controls the 4G LTE standards and 
promulgates enhancements to the set, similar to the various iterations 
of 802.11x developed by IEEE.141 3GPP developed 4G LTE in part through 
recommendations from the Next Generation Mobile Networks initiative – of 
which China Mobile Communications Corporation is a member.142 With 
Sprint Corporation’s cessation of support for WiMAX in 2012, all 
American smartphone carriers now support 4G LTE standards 
exclusively.143 The market has thus established 4G LTE as a de facto 
hegemon.144

ZUC is an additional encryption system operating over the top of 4G 
LTE.145 The Data Assurance and Communication Security Center (“DCS”) of 
the Chinese Academy of Sciences is developing the standard, and held the 
first international workshop on ZUC in December 2010.146 In 2011, 3GPP 
approved ZUC as one of several voluntary encryption standards.147 In 
early 2012, China’s MIIT informally announced that networks and mobile 
devices operating on China’s TD-LTE standard must only use 
domestic-developed encryption algorithms, a set that includes ZUC.148 At 
subsequent bilateral negotiations between the US and China, China agreed 
not to mandate a specific encryption standard.149 The US Trade 
Representative is still closely monitoring ZUC developments.150



[Long snip on why the WTO is likely to conclude against USA and for 
China, citing US - Nicaragua as precedent, and /national security/ as 
the right of sovereigns to break markets.]



VII. CONCLUSION A WTO Panel, in a dispute over the Encryption Standards 
invoking Article XXI’s national security exception, is very likely to 
produce a dual ruling akin to the GATT Panel Report in US – Nicaragua: 
that China has breached its obligations, yet that breach is justified 
under Article XXI’s national security exception. Any ruling to the 
contrary would require the Panel to ignore the terms of reference set in 
US — Nicaragua and rule on the validity or motivation of China’s 
invocation of Article XXI. As national security goes to the core of a 
sovereign’s responsibility, the consequences of a new formal 
interpretation of Article XXI would be severe – and beyond the scope of 
this Note.
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