You could use something like Altiris Deployment Solution which was bought by Symantec. Judging by the screenshots of the latest versions, it already has the backup and wipe capabilities built in. So it would be a one box solution. I know that you can assign initial deployment tasks to any new system detected by DS, so you can just set it up to perform the backup first, then perform a data wipe, and when it's completed, the new system will be identified in the UI as such.

I've used an older version primarily for OS deployments in a large-ish (500-800PC) network, and rarely had any difficulty. I think that the biggest downside, other than having to use Windows as your base OS, would be the costs for licensing. I think they sell it in blocks of 100 systems, and it isn't exactly cheap. It will, however, do exactly what you want in an automated fashion.

It's not the government or the ISP's job to monitor and/or determine the usage of the content available on the internet. Were I to publish a game, for example, it would then be up to me as an individual to research, inspect, and determine if anyone is infringing on the copyright of my game. Just because they're a large entity doesn't mean they should be exempted from the same issues facing the individual content owners.

Why should the ISP's be forced to swallow the costs of such a manhunt, when they receive zero benefit from the search, it costs them money, and it displays them negatively in the public light such that their brand is devalued, however slightly.

Essentially, content owners should be, and are, responsible for making sure that everyone who uses their content is abiding by their specified licenses, etc. If you're complaining about the costs that you incur whilst enforcing your licensing model, and want the government to help out, perhaps you should re-evaluate your licensing model. Of course, that particular dead horse has been beaten so severely, at this point, to be unrecognizable.

I know, that in this environment of increasing paranoia, I'm probably not the first person to think that announcing a nationwide test of the emergency broadcast system and giving the exact date and time of the test could potentially be a bad plan. It seems to me that perhaps someone wishing to perform any sort of nationwide nefarious activities would plan to do so on a day like that. I can see it now...

"Did you hear that there is a "

"Oh, don't worry about it, they were just testing the emergency broadcast system today. Nothing to worry about."

Just my $0.02 though.

We do, however, have plenty of hydrogen. That could be used instead of helium and we can send as many balloons as we wanted without a whole lot of fear of "running out" of the lift fuel.

Exactly! And the Blu-Ray format was invented to allow more storage on a physical disc media. Thus, you have the storage available to put an entire movie in High Definition on it(~10 - ~30Gb).

I have the fastest available broadband in my area(18Mbps down). To download an entire high def movie in that size would take significantly longer than I would want to wait in front of my television for it. I bought my Blu-ray player for the quality. If I'm going to be forced to download the same content, I expect, and demand, the same quality.

Also, let us not forget about the fact that a sizable portion of the US is still running on dial-up, so downloading a high definition movie is completely out of the question.

Unless the content providers are willing to invest heavily in the broadband infrastructure of the country then physical media like Blu-Ray is here to stay, at least for the next several years.

If you fill out the quiz, and at the end, you elect not to protect yourself, you get to watch a video. At the end of that video if you choose not to protect yourself, you get another video, and yet another follows that. That, is what it's doing in the background. Downloading video. Personally, the Shopping Network video scared me.

I just came back in from a two week stay in Europe, where my travels took me through several countries there. While I was there, all the photos that I took were stored on the laptop, along with several movies that I'd ripped to the drive.

Upon my return to the states, the check-in process wasn't any different than it had been a couple of years ago. They asked no questions about my laptop, or if I even had one. The only time my laptop left my bag was when I put it through the X-ray machine.

That being said, it never hurts to encrypt your data anyway.