The only correct answer would be "you dereference a null pointer". That is the only part of this equation the c language interacts with. That's the entire reason SIGSEGV is a signal to your process. Page faults or access violations are manifested as interrupts in most systems. In some systems there are no such restrictions. Even in C & x86 within RING 0 you should be able to access ((char )0). I've even made an example branch on an old kernel I was making when I was in highschool to test this and it does work [0].

What is unfortunate is that everyone is looking for a different kind of person. If I'm applying to a job, saying "segfault" might be the right answer OR it will be the wrong answer and the interviewer will leave thinking I don't know how this fundamental functionality (in some industries) works. I could also give the more correct answer and look like a know-it-all which, when I'm trying to sell myself based on what I know, is somehow a bad thing.

It's a loss no matter which way I play it.

I distinctly remember one interview where someone asked me to define a RESTful API for a chat service. So I naturally defined the different objects (ChatRoom, Message, User) and defined what CREATE, LIST, DELETE on them all did. The interviewer was confused because CREATE&LIST are not HTTP methods and I explained that RESTful design isn't really coupled to HTTP and these objects and the operations we can perform with them could be implemented over an RPC or HTTP/json and I listed the steps for both of these approaches. He cut the interview short and I never heard from that company again.

[0] - https://github.com/gravypod/Simple-OS/commit/b7a608500b2e70d...