<i>Some systems allow you to dereference NULL</i><p>For example inside the Linux kernel. GCC has the special switch &quot;-fno-delete-null-pointer-checks&quot; that turns off the assumption that a dereferenced pointer is never null: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;homes.cs.washington.edu&#x2F;~akcheung&#x2F;papers&#x2F;apsys12.html" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;homes.cs.washington.edu&#x2F;~akcheung&#x2F;papers&#x2F;apsys12.htm...</a>