NetworkManager Adds Support For Enhanced Open / Opportunistic Wireless Encryption

Opportunistic Wireless Encryption (OWE) provides a means of encrypting wireless data transfers without having any secret/key. Opportunistic Wireless Encryption is advertised as Wi-Fi Certified Enhanced Open.

This OWE / "Enhanced Open" standard is now supported by NetworkManager for allowing supported devices connecting to Linux systems to make use of this means of opportunistic encryption. The Wi-Fi CERTIFIED Enhanced Open has been around just since summer of 2018 to better secure open WiFi networks. More details on the standard can be found via Wi-Fi.org.

For those making use of the likes of OpenWrt for your own home-built wireless network, this NetworkManager support requires WPA-Supplicant be built with OWE support enabled. On the WiFi adapter side, it appears any mac80211-supported card should work.

The OWE support is in Git for what will eventually become NetworkManager 1.24 early next year.