Question: A network protocol contains a four-byte integer, specifying the length of the payload in the packet. The implementation of this protocol has a mistake in
A network protocol contains a four-byte integer, specifying the length of the payload in the packet. The implementation of this protocol has a mistake in it. When a packet is received, the protocol implementation needs to copy the payload to a buffer. It first copies the length field from the packet header to a variable, but the program forgets to convert the number into the host order. Assume the value of this variable is X. The program then allocates X bytes of memory to hold a copy of the payload. On a Little-Endian machine, if the payload of a received packet is 255 bytes, how much memory will be allocated? What is a likely consequence of this mistake?
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