Its our RESPONSIBILITY!!

I am a web developer.

I make websites, but I am often perplexed by the strange nature of my job, or to be more specific, the nature of the industry.

I am basically an Electrical Engineer and have joined the Internet Industry out of an interest towards it. I really enjoy being the part of it but, sometimes, when I compare this with Electrical Industry, then I feel that there are some very basic things which are unfortunately missing from this industry, the most promienient being - Coding and Security Standards!!

I find that we do have things like - Valid CSS, Valid XHTML and so on.. but what about a secure code standard??

How can this be ensured that the code developed by a developer is secure enough??

Above all this, there is another aspect of this issue too.. that even if we have or if we develop such standards then how relaible will those standards themselves will be??

I read somewhere that - "In Internet, Security is a Myth!" - Bad Idea I feel, as the security of the data is and should be the prime concern according to me.

If my website is not secure enough to then thats a big weakness, according to me the biggest!!
We may have the companies which can carry out testing for us and ensure that website is secure enough by adding unwanted data and checking the results etc..., but do we have any certification for secure code the way we have for Valid CSS?? The answer I feel is - NO!!

This makes me feel that my responsibilty is enhanced being a coder or web developer.. even if my testing team, I know, is not that good enough and will by pass things but then too, I feel, I should take an extra care to know that the website is really secure!! (I still wonder to the reach of the word "Secure".. what are it limits? can we define that even??)

I feel that as far as possible from my side I should try making the website most secured one and after making a website ask a question from self that - "Will I add the details of a near and dear one to this website without any second thought to it?" I feel that I should get the answer as YES to this question every time I am working at awebsite!!(I only wonder if the competition will permit me to do so..as my boss would ask me finish a thing soon so that I can be moved to another project quickly...)

Every industry, I feel, needs to maintain the trust of its customers. For Electrical here we have an ISI mark which approves of the safety of the product.. I wonder what can be its couterpart for the Internet Industry!!