I think it’s important in any line of work, and especially in software development, to know your limitations. One of my limitations is security in software; cryptography, stuff like that. I only know enough about security in software to know that I don’t know enough. Hence, any attempt I made to develop secure software would almost certainly not produce a robust solution, and a non-robust security solution is worse than no solution at all.
Here’s how Phil “PGP” Zimmerman describes the perils of bad cryptography products:
This is like selling automotive seat belts that look good and feel good, but snap open in the slowest crash test. Depending on them may be worse than not wearing seat belts at all. No one suspects they are bad until a real crash. Depending on weak cryptographic software may cause you to unknowingly place sensitive information at risk when you might not otherwise have done so if you had no cryptographic software at all. Perhaps you may never even discover that your data has been compromised.