Briefings (14/01/10) : Rescue, UAV data, Google-China

The RUSI is warning that the UK armed forces could lose 20% of it's trained personnel because of pressures on the defence budget and rising military costs. The RAF Search & Rescue teams have been busy because of the wintry weather in the UK.

The US are heavy users of drones and that use is going to get heavier but one of the problems they are having is the amount of data being gathered, in 2008 24 years worth of footage was gathered alone! The US is now turning to the television industry for technology and techniques to help them manage and analyse the vast amount of data.

Google's decision to not censor results in China and potentially closing down it's operations in China may have been because of the Chinese government's hacking of the Gmail accounts of human rights activists and other cyber attacks which may be part of a wider spying effort by China on US IT companies. Wikileaks is claiming China was accessing Google's source code and also the US Government's Gmail-intercept system. The always excellent Information Dissemination also looks at this.

Al Qaeda may be linked to a "rogue" aviation network of aircraft which regularly criss-cross the Atlantic laden with drugs and weapons.