From RISKS: secret scrubbing code removed by optimizers

[Dan Kaminsky]

Ben Lindstrom wrote:

>I know there has been a lot of talk on private OpenBSD lists and it is
>being ensured that gcc never removes memset() entries on OpenBSD.
>
>Personally I think if gcc is optimizing it away it is incorrect.  I
>believe 3.2+ GCC series supports a flag to leave memsets, but I'm not sure
>how usaged 3.2 is.
>  
>
Just to be a bit paranoid,

    Has somebody actually verified this optimizing behavior in any build 
of GCC?  Does voliatile actually stop it?
   
--Dan