why- Open BSD .rocks

pledge(2) (∞)

pledge allows you to limit a program’s access to system calls very easily. This is a huge improvement in security: why should cut(1) ever need to open a socket? Just deny it the ability to do so. Even if a binary is compromised, its chances to misbehave are greatly reduced.

int
main(int argc, char *argv[])
{
  [...]
  if (pledge("stdio rpath", NULL) == -1)
    err(1, "pledge");
  [...]
}

Within only two releases, the OpenBSD Developers managed to introduce pledge to most of the binaries in the base system.

Details: