Can Privacy and Cybersecurity Shortcuts be Efficient?

We all know a good privacy and cybersecurity shortcut can save us tome and groef, nut is a shortcut really more efficient? To determine this let’s consider why a shortcut is not just ‘the way’ to the destination. Shortcuts usually have constricted maneuverability and the dangers have not been fully explored, assessed, reduced, and/or documented. Let’s take an example from my personal history. I was in the southwest United States driving through some desert from one small town to another. While looking at the map I could see it was about twice the distance to the destination if I drove 40 miles to the highway then to the destination versus driving an ‘old highway’ that connected the two. About an hour into my drive I started climbing a mountain, then the roads narrowed to just about the width of two parking spaces with a cliff that extended one hundred feet above my vehicle on one side and one hundred feet below my vehicle on the other. Shortly after the road started to make sharp turns around and with the rock wall. Part of the time I was driving towards a flat endless desert floor and the other half I was driving towards a rock wall. Once I reached the top, a small desert town with a population of less than 5,000 and no gas station, I noticed I had already used half a tank of gas and begane to wonder if I had made the right choice. If I had taken the highway I would be traveling more than twice the speed I was able to travel on my ‘short cut’ and wouldn’t be at risk of running out of gas in a sparsely populated desert setting. I wasn’t saving time or money but was seeing spectacular views that presented a certain amount of personal risk while possibly running out of gas. I did eventually reach my destination but I was far below the ‘e’ on the gas gauge and coasted a good bit down the hills and mountain.
shortcuts are like that, they can offer rarely seen spectacles but may present many unforeseen risks. Shortly after I made that drive another person made that drive and was killed going around a blind curve because another driver was coming the other direction and driving too quickly. As such, a shortcut may work one way at any given time but provide vastly different results at another.
If you believe you have found a more efficient way to do something take a moment to determine of it is more efficient or just a shortcut. A good way to determine if it is more efficient is by understanding how reliably the results can be achieved the same way every time, understanding the risks and knowing how to avoid and compensate for them, and documenting everything for improvement and learning purposes. Shortcuts can lead to efficiencies only after proper vetting, understanding, and implementation. Shortcuts should never be used unless they have become ‘the way’ based on efficiency upgrades.