After my last entry about the Chinese Firewalls I started to get curious about the origins of the phrase “Chinese Fire Drill”. The Phrase Finder has an odd story that someone posted:

It is my understanding that this phrase originated in the early 1900s. It came from an naval incident where a ship officered by the British and crewed by the Chinese set up a fire drill for fire in the engine room. In the event of a fire the crew was to draw water from the starboard side, take to the engine room and throw it on the fire. Another crew in the engine room was to take the thrown water and throw it over the port side.

When the drill was called the first moments went according to plan then it got confused. The crew began drawing the water from the staroard side and runing over to the port side and throwing the water over, by-passing the the engine room completely.

Thus the expression “Chinese Fire Drill” entered our lexicon as meaning a large confused action by individuals accomplishing nothing.

Perhaps “British Navy Fire Drill” did not have the same ring to it, but it seems to be a more accurate description of the event. After all, wasn’t the reason for the Chinese being employed on the ships their experience and talent for seafaring that Europeans had always envied and emulated, combined with their willingness to work in high-risk endeavors? In other words would you blame the workers or management for a failed disaster plan? And would you really come up with a phrase for a single event like this, or were there other more likely reasons (prejudice against the Chinese)?

I guess the phrase is an unfortunate or even unfair turnabout. Reminds me of the “Chinaman’s minute” or “Chinaman’s chance” which were apparently coined by those who employed the Chinese for building railroads but did not mind leaving them exposed to high risk and physical harm from dynamite. Workers were lowered by rope and boatswain chair down steep inclines in order to set dynamite. When they weren’t pulled back up in time…I remember reading once that the delay could even have been intentional, due to rivalries and ethnic strife among the workers and managers.

Here’s a late twist to the story of Gilbert Bourgeaud (aka Bob Denard), the infamous mercenary: apparently his lawyer argued in French court that Denard simply was acting on behalf of the government to destabilize foreign nations including the Comoros. The French authorities have rejected his claims and ruled that Denard should get a five-year suspended sentence. The BBC describes him thus:

Bob Denard, 77, contributed to bloody conflicts across Africa for nearly 40 years, but the French mercenary is best known for his interventions in the Comoros Islands, one of which has led to his conviction in a French court.

He once described himself as “a soldier never an assassin”, and has claimed he was acting in the interests of France or other European powers, though he was once accused of plotting to assassinate a French prime minister.

So, to recap, Denard led a sucessful military coup against Ahmed Abdallah in 1975 (after the islands declared independence from France). Denard then led another coup in 1978, this time installing Abdallah as President. In 1989 President Abdallah was killed by Denard’s men, but Denard avoided any charges in French court for wrongdoing. Then in 1995 Denard staged another coup in the Comoros, which “failed” when the French army moved in to “restore order”…and so Denard, a free man, settled in Paris to await sentencing for what he described as serving French interests.

Imagine trying to keep information secure when you never really know who you work for and who will be next in power or what they will declare right and wrong. Non-repudiation and plausible deniability is an important factor in these international webs of intrigue.

In slightly related news, an intelligence officer turned General (now retired) has continued to argue that he was not only ordered by the French Government to torture Algerians, but that it is the right thing to do in times of conflict:

The Paris appeals court confirmed that General Paul Aussaresses, 84, must pay a fine of 7,500 euros ($8,300) – the punishment handed down by a criminal court in January last year.

Aussaresses admitted torturing and killing 24 Algerian prisoners-of-war in a book he published in 2001 about the conflict.

[…]

Aussaresses said Friday’s ruling was “stupid”. He added that he had “neither remorse nor regrets” and would appeal to France’s highest criminal court.

The Bush administration’s “ban” on federal funding of stem-cell research apparently has led innovators and scientists to find paths of private funding, with “firewalls” to protect other federal grants in the same research facility. Yes, firewalls. This means a much higher cost to research since a whole new redundant infrastructure is required, without any of the normal benefits (they must remain isolated).

You might call this holy-law approach to science the exact opposite of the spirit in the 1950s and 60s when the US wanted to land a man on the moon — imagine if Kennedy had said that space exploration is an immoral pursuit and therefore would not be federally funded…rockets would have had to been made by private firms only and anyone mingling funds would have their rocket research shut-down. Incidentally, this reminds me of the tight security controls around Russian scientists that prevented them from ever knowing the real name or location of their comrades, but I digress…

After President Bush announced his funding policy, UCSF’s stem cell scientists, including Susan Fisher, confined their work on new human embryonic stem cell lines to an off-campus site, a former dental office.

In December 2002, a storm swept through the San Francisco Bay area, triggering power outages. On campus, emergency generators kicked in, protecting patients and biological research materials. Fisher’s lab lacked back-up power. Her cells died, setting the school’s program back two years, she said.

“It was extremely painful,” Fisher said in a June 1 telephone interview. “You sit there and watch the clock go by. We knew they were dying.”

No disaster recovery plan, eh? I bet the cost of back-up power is a lot less than two years of research. Clearly the need for information security will boom in this industry of completely redundant systems within a single entity that can not mingle in any way. Good for the information security profession and general contractors, bad for science, health and human welfare.