As I'm sure you've heard by now, the authorities in the UK have stopped a massive terror plot to bring down 20 planes in the USA using liqud explosives in carry-on bags.

For the first time, we're at "red alert" for a part of the country, specifically, places where planes from the UK are coming into the USA.

At 5:15 this morning, I listened to the CEO of Heathrow Airport describe the security measures thay have undertaken. Read this closely, because this will become the norm for air travel in the very near future.

1. No more carry-on luggage. No computer bags, backpacks, waist packs, whatever. None.

2. No liquids, lotions, creams or other liquid-linje substances. Exceptions are baby milk (which you must drink to prove it's not toxic - a pointless exercise for a suicide bomber) and medications.

3. No electronics of any kind. No iPod, FLASHLIGHTS, Cell Phone, Key Fob Car Unlocker, Laptops, hip tops, nothing that uses electricity or has a battery. No radios of ANY KIND.

4. Allowed items are travel documents, identity papers, money, cards, medications (with prescriptions), sanitary items. All items must be carried in a clear plastic bag. All passengers are hand-searched. All shoes, belts, clothing accessories and so forth are x-rayed and hand examined.

5. Only airport-provided wheelchairs may be used.

Obviously, the next logical step is that you must fly naked & sedated, which would be fine with me. Or perhaps it's time to get serious with this idea:
http://www.focazio.com/pa/

In all seriousness, this raises some profound implications for traveling. Of course, my first bit of advice is, as always; don't check what you can send. Pack it in a sturdy case, call UPS or Fedex, and ship it to your destination. It’s not as expensive as you’d think.

That said, now that you need to (gasp!) check your laptop, it's time to talk about the reality of doing it right.

First of all, physical protection. There's only one way to go when packing a laptop, and that's the case-in-a-case method. My favorite laptop case is the Pelican 1490CC1. There's also a 1490CC2, which is about $20 less, but lacks the storage space of the 1490CC1. They are about $149 (for the CC1) and $129 (for the CC2). Pack that case INSIDE another case (like another Pelican Case ideally, or another HARD-SIDE case.

You can't lock your bags, unless you’re checking a gun, and the TSA-approved locks are a joke, so don’t bother with locks. So another thing you should do is protect your data.

The most basic thing you can do to protect a laptop is to enable a power-on password via the system BIOS. While this won't stop someone from getting at the data on your hard drive if they remove the drive from your computer, it will stop the less-determined. The next level is to disable auto-login on your computer. Yes, it's a pain in the butt to have to log-in to the system, but it's another level of prevention. Before you fly, clear out all of your saved passwords, cookies and delete your temporary files. I use a product called BC Wipe (google it) to make sure files that I delete are really gone.

Finally, and this is a it of a radical step, consider encrypting your hard drive. On a Mac, this is as simple as using the "File Vault" option under the "Security" system preferences. This takes your entire home directory and makes it an encrypted data store. That means that without your password, the data on the file can't be read, even if the hard drive is physically removed. On a PC, things are not as simple, but check out the software that came with the laptop - for example, the Acer TravelMate series includes a fairly decent encryption utility that comes pre-installed on the system.

The other option is to skip the laptop entirely and move your digital life onto a USB Keychain Drive. It's amazing how effective this is. If you go to www.portableapps.com, you'll find a universe of applications that you can copy to a USB Keychain Drive. I carry a Lexar Media 2GB Jump Drive Lightning, and on it I have portable versions of the Firefox web rowser, Thunderbird Email, Open Office - an MS-Office Replacement, Filezilla FTP client, Clam Window Virus Scanner, GAIM - a multi-platform instant messaging client, NVU - a web page & site creation tool similar to FrontPage, GIMP, a photoshop replacement, and VLC, a media player application for video and audio. I fit all that in 747 MB, and that leaves me with lots of room to spare for files. All I need is a Windows computer with a USB port and I'm up and running. The nice thing about this is with a 2GB USB Drive, I can back up everything - applications and files - in a few minutes to a DVD (which holds 4.7 GB). Heck, 2GB is small enough that you can zip the entire drive and upload it to a web server somewhere as a backup. If I really, really really wanted to travel light, I could even forego the USB key drive and put all the applications and data onto a single 2gb SD card (http://usamemory.net/2gbsdcard.html) and tuck that into my wallet. It's easy to find card readers anywhere you go.

In the end, air travel, which I remember as being glamorous and exciting when I was a kid, has gradually gone from being something desirable to being only slightly more pleasant than crawling on your hands and knees through a sewer while being yelled at by angry trolls who are throwing rotten tomatoes at your head.

Getting there is none of the fun, that’s for sure.