On Wed, 18 Jul 2001, Sean 'Captain Napalm' Conner wrote:
some_buffer db 4096 dup(0)
end segment
That EXPLICITLY calls for 4K of 0's.
Virtually no assembler is clever enough to do a run-length compression.
OTOH, If you wrote
some_buffer db 4096 dup (?)
it would set up 4K of "UNINITIALIZED" space, which it COULD compress out
of the file, particularly if it is at the end.
. . . So it would be easy enough for a virus to scan
the
executable for a portion that is nothing but zeros, and hide in there.
It could
always make space within the MICROS~1 copyright message.
--
Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin(a)xenosoft.com