NetworkManager Adds Support For Enhanced Open / Opportunistic Wireless Encryption

Written by Michael Larabel in Linux Networking on 6 December 2019 at 04:00 AM EST. Add A Comment
LINUX NETWORKING
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.
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Michael Larabel is the principal author of Phoronix.com and founded the site in 2004 with a focus on enriching the Linux hardware experience. Michael has written more than 20,000 articles covering the state of Linux hardware support, Linux performance, graphics drivers, and other topics. Michael is also the lead developer of the Phoronix Test Suite, Phoromatic, and OpenBenchmarking.org automated benchmarking software. He can be followed via Twitter, LinkedIn, or contacted via MichaelLarabel.com.

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