automated safe use of public Wi-Fi using networkmanager

["David H. Durgee" <dhdurgee verizon net>]

I have Rebecca 17.1 x64 Cinnamon installed on my laptop. On occasion 
when I am traveling I need to use a public Wi-Fi hotspot such as attwifi 
at a restaurant. I of course have ufw enabled, but that will not stop 
someone from eavesdropping on any communications I have. I plan to add 
OpenVPN to the laptop to eliminate these issues, but this leaves a 
rather cumbersome procedure to follow to set things up and some of it 
may leave points of vulnerability.

1) The current wireless networking widget on the panel connects 
automatically to a recognized SSID. This includes public Wi-Fi hotspots 
such as attwifi.
2) Many of these public Wi-Fi hotspots, such as attwifi at McDonalds, 
require some interaction before the connection can be used
3) OpenVPN cannot be activated until a functional connection is 
established and must be active to secure communications

Ideally, I would like to have the entire process scripted. I would also 
like to see the wireless networking checking at the MAC address level as 
opposed to SSID. Networks with the same SSID, for example attwifi, may 
vary in their interaction to activate the connection by location. To 
minimize the risk of leaking data to eavesdroppers it would be great to 
block all outbound traffic except that needed to negotiate the active 
connection and the OpenVPN tunnel until it is successfully established.

It appears that I am using NetworkManager 0.9.8.8, as that is what is 
part of my distro.  This lead me to post this query to the mailing 
list.  Has anyone already developed such a script?

Dave