title: I need some weak entropy. I know I can use an unitialized buffer, but if I just need an integer's worth, would its address suffice instead?
body: <p>I'm on Linux, which has address space layout randomization. Is it necessary to to declare a buffer on the stack, leave it uninitialized, and use it for entropy, or can I just take the address of something already on the stack, cast it to an integer and (knowing that it is somewhat random due to address space layout randomization) use that integer for entropy instead?</p>
  
  <p>The pointer approach has an advantage in that it generates no compiler warnings as the unitialized buffer does when you attempt to manipulate it, but in my tests it seemed only the lower-order part of the address (maybe the last byte or two) would change from invocation to invocation. The entropy buffer seemed to perform even worse, often containing nothing at all.</p>