--- title: "Philosophy" date: 2019-02-28T09:52:26+01:00 publishDate: 2019-02-28T09:52:26+01:00 author: "Dimitri Staessens" images: [] draft: false tags: [] ---
![](https://effectivesoftwaredesign.files.wordpress.com/2015/10/quote-if-10-years-from-now-when-you-are-doing-something-quick-and-dirty-you-suddenly-visualize-that-i-edsger-dijkstra-50997.jpg)
During his entire scientific career, Edsger Dijkstra broke a lance for the creed -- which he attributes to Tony Hoare -- that [*simplicity is prerequisite for reliability*](http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/EWD/transcriptions/EWD06xx/EWD619.html). He spent a lot of time and effort convincing his contemporaries in the computing science community that *elegance is not a dispensable luxury, but a matter of life and death*. Dijkstra was painfully aware that [*simplicity is very hard to achieve*](https://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/EWD/transcriptions/EWD08xx/EWD896.html) and grossly underrated, even to the point that the academic and economic reward systems work against any attempt do so: "*complexity sells better*". With some computer engineers living by the motto *move fast and break things*, Dijkstra would most definitely [not have been happy](http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/EWD/transcriptions/EWD12xx/EWD1213.html) with much of the current state of affairs of computing science. While he always will be considered one of the greatest computer scientists that ever lived, his passionate message to diligently strive for elegance seems to be all but erased from the collective consciousness of engineers and computer scientists. Are we further away today from computing's central challenge than we were [almost 20 years ago] (https://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/EWD/transcriptions/EWD13xx/EWD1304.html)?
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The current TCP/IP network stack has a long development history, and its technical debt is leading to inefficiencies that allow hackers to infiltrate networks with childish ease. In order to get to a trustworthy and secure communications infrastructure, the structure of the Internet needs to be drastically revised. The current protocols have so much deprecated, unused and unnecessary bits and fields, that trying to guard against every possible exploit is inefficient and virtually impossible. Ouroboros is a new decentralized packet transport network for POSIX operating systems that aims to accepts Edward Snowdens [challenge](https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/05/edward-snowdens-other-motive-for-leaking/370068/): to build a network infrastructure that will "*enforce a principle whereby the only way the powerful may enjoy privacy is when it is the same kind shared by the ordinary: one enforced by the laws of nature, rather than the policies of man*."