So have I. I refer back to my original post.

We have an unarmed victim, making the supposed deadly threat unlikely. That would mean Zimmerman shot him without a credible fear for his life

Martin was a well-built athlete. Zimmerman, not so much. If Martin started a fight, it's highly probable that he didn't know Zimmerman was armed.

If Martin sucker-punched Zimmerman and started beating on him before Zimmerman brandished a weapon, then that makes it a legitimate use-case of SYG.

(Please note that I am prefacing these statements with 'if' since we do not know for certain. I am merely presenting a case where SYG could legitimately be used and argued for)

We have evidence that the victim was attempting to retreat (evenm though not obligated to do so) which further suggests there was no threat to Zimmerman's life

No. The evidence we have shows that Martin was being followed by Zimmerman for the purposes of surveillance (911 call about a suspicious person by Zimmerman), not that Zimmerman was pursuing Martin with a weapon drawn or the threat of violence.

Again, that makes the claim that Zimmerman was reasonably fearful for his life look rather weak.

You seem to be proceeding on the basis of faulty information.

There are two problems with this argument -

(1) He was treated by EMTs before being brought into custody. This is standard procedure - the cops don't want a suspect dribbling blood all over their police station and moaning in pain while trying to piece together events.

(2) A higher resolution video has been released that seems to show evidence of injuries: http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Journalism/2012/03/31/New-Hi-Def-Vid. (You may disagree with Breitbart, but the video is relevant regardless of who posts it).

(1) Citation needed. Not aware of Florida law in particular, but Zimmerman was licensed to use his firearm. Further, 'neighborhood watch' programs are not regulated in any capacity that I'm aware of - they are simply just bands of civilians who have to follow the same laws that individual civilians do. He is permitted to carry his firearm as a civilian regardless of whether or not he's doing it under the auspices of a 'neighborhood watch' program that the government makes no special deference to.

(2) This is common sense that Zimmerman should have followed. It's not a legal commandment, however.

(3) The suggestions of the 911 dispatcher are not legally binding in any way. 911 dispatchers are not officers of the law, nor does the 911 dispatcher really have full situational awareness of what is going on.

The authorities don't press charges unless they believe they have a reasonable case to proceed on. The police can't just arrest because "just because". Sometimes the price of due process and defense of civil rights includes letting possible criminals walk free for a while while the authorities do their job behind the scenes to build up a more solid case.

Instead of misdirecting your rage at the local officers, you should be looking at the SYG laws that put a heavy burden of proof on the prosecution to prove that people like Zimmerman did not legitimately defend themselves under the SYG law. That's why he's walking free today - Zimmerman can simply say that the event happened a certain way and with no opposition witnesses and of course, no Trayvon Martin, there was no immediate basis to claim he was wrong.

The authorities *are* putting together a grand jury where all the known facts will be evaluated and a case will be opened if the grand jury believes there is sufficient evidence to proceed.

The shooter and two witnesses (that I am aware of).

And there *is* an investigation. Stop spreading disinformation. Let the system do it's job.

Erm, the case *is* being investigated. For one thing, he was taken into custody for questioning the night of the incident. I also believe that local officials actually tried to present this case to a prosecutor and was denied due to lack of evidence. Now work is being done to present this case to a grand jury. How can you say that there is no investigation?

It's amazing how much misinformation is being spread out there that is fueling a lot of pointless emotions.

See here and here.

But the Cisco incident is relevant too.

Wow. Just wow.

Please don't tell me you're in any way shape or form responsible for IT security.

I hope you understand that graphical exploit kits do exist that target UNIX systems. This commenter pointed it out.

An attacker who knows what he is doing will attack both Windows and UNIX systems. One that doesn't will just use a tool that a skilled person wrote to "point and click" his way into a box regardless of what OS it is running.

I respect your point, but I think you overlook some very easy to imagine scenarios where the laptop can be compromised.

One case would be the employee has his laptop out, lets say in a meeting (but this could be anywhere, like the airport lounge, cafe, and etc.). Employee is distracted for a while (maybe a phone call, or maybe somebody is striking up a long-winded conversation) - somebody has physical access to the laptop for a minute or two. A backdoor is loaded on the laptop during the distraction. The usual Windows group policies to lock out the laptop after 5 minutes are meaningless.

Is it farfetched? Maybe you think it is. But a long time ago, people never thought the exploits we battle today would be a problem on the Internet.

Again, the question goes back to what this employee is really doing. Does he want his ass on the line if his Ubuntu laptop gets compromised and then later traced back to his laptop? It's really situational. Not all mobile users handle sensitive data or are really targets for attacks. Not all laptop users travel - many laptops are just issued for home and office use.

As an alternative, you can also compromise the boot loader and/or device driver that is used to actually enter the password to decrypt the system. Since the loader/driver itself is not encrypted, it is subject to being compromised.

Once the correct password is entered in later by the authorized user, the password can either be stored somewhere (maybe in the MBR) or if you're clever enough, you can actually use the compromised driver to run unauthorized code once the system is connected back to the internet.

Then there is the cold boot attack.

Encryption helps, but does not seal up all possible avenues of attack.

1. The laptops carry sensitive data. Treating them as hostile is a good start, but it in no way validates leaving the user to install his own malware/crapware, etc.

Strawman. Nobody said the employee should be deliberately installing malware. What kind of idiot would think that is a good idea?

The point is situational - if the employee can be responsible enough to secure the laptop and get away with it (i.e. they don't have a little Hitler in the IT department with a keylogger running or something), then by all means I don't personally have a problem with it.

If the employee is actually handling sensitive data (i.e. something where law enforcement, lawyers, SEC, or shareholders might get involved if there is a breach or loss), then it is probably in his best interests to let the IT department take the heat if the laptop is hacked, stolen and then subsequently recovered, or found manipulated by a virus later.

IT departments are pretty good about patching Windows/MS Office etc

I love how you speak for all IT departments.

Just who's post is the 'tarded one now? (If you can bait the flames, then you can take the flames too!)

But they haven't lost physical control of the machine, they've given it to an employee with clear guidelines on how to maintain security.

Look, you don't get it. A desktop PC never leaves the office. You always know where it is. If your facilities are secure like they're supposed to be, you know who comes in and out of the building, and ultimately, who has had access to that desktop.

If you give a laptop to an employee for work use, you don't know *exactly* where that laptop is going and you don't know who else might have access to it while it is away.

If you think you do, you're really deluded. I'm not trying to be an ass, but I do IT security for a living. We go through these scenarios on a nearly daily basis with our clients.

You absolutely cannot trust a device once it has left the premises until it has been wiped totally clean and reinstalled from the standard company OS image.

A client I've worked with recently had their network breached because an employee connected to a rouge hotspot while traveling in China and picked up a virus from an exploit that the vendor had only *just released* the patch for but the company had yet to deploy. And that's just *one* scenario of what could happen with a mobile device.

You should be embarrased to post that in what used to be technical forum

Name one technically inaccurate point made in my post. Tick, tock. I'm waiting.

A laptop in possession of a trustworthy employee governed by policy is not losing physical control

So you're saying that all employees will carry their laptop on their person at all times, including while they're going through airport security (in which the agent asks you to take the laptop aside), never left in a hotel room, never left in a meeting room at a conference while everyone goes to grab lunch, and etc?

You really have no clue. You should be the embarrassed one.

The OP didn't mention what the policies and so this entire thread will be a flame war.

Well thanks for taking the high road buddy.

Except the last paragraph which is dangerously naive

No, it's not naive just because you don't like the point I made. Just because you've never worked with a company that can't keep up with patches doesn't mean these IT departments don't exist. Unlike you, I've actually done real IT work, done IT consulting, and do IT security for a living.

Name a piece of software that can detect when Windows has been 0-day'd to allow a monitoring kit to be installed.

Name a piece of software that can tell when a laptop is being tinkered with (perhaps by a guy with a USB key loaded with hostile software) while the employee is distracted.

Sorry, software does not solve these problems.