Best VPN with Port Forwarding in 2026 — Tested by Nolan Voss By Nolan Voss — 12yr enterprise IT security, 4yr penetration tester, independent security consultant — Austin, TX home lab The Short Answer NordVPN remains the only consumer-grade solution that successfully maintains stable port forwarding rules under high concurrent load without triggering IP reputation…
Best VPN for Cryptocurrency Payments — NordVPN Tested by Nolan Voss By Nolan Voss — 12yr enterprise IT security, 4yr penetration tester, independent security consultant — Austin, TX home lab The Short Answer NordVPN remains the only major provider that passed my aggressive DNS leak testing while maintaining sub-15ms latency for high-frequency trading connections. During…
OSCP Review: 2026 Penetration Tester Cert — Tested by Nolan Voss By Nolan Voss — 12yr enterprise IT security, 4yr penetration tester, independent security consultant — Austin, TX home lab The Short Answer The OSCP certification remains the industry gold standard for entry-level offensive security roles, though the 2026 update introduces stricter time-boxing that penalizes…
Security Onion Deployment in 2026 — Tested by Nolan Voss By Nolan Voss — 12yr enterprise IT security, 4yr penetration tester, independent security consultant — Austin, TX home lab The Short Answer Security Onion remains a formidable SIEM and NDR solution for the 2026 landscape, provided you are comfortable with its steep learning curve and…
Unbound vs BIND for Home Lab DNS — Tested by Nolan Voss By Nolan Voss — 12yr enterprise IT security, 4yr penetration tester, independent security consultant — Austin, TX home lab The Short Answer Unbound is the superior choice for crypto and blockchain users who prioritize query integrity and low latency over raw feature bloat….
Home Lab ZeroTier Mesh Network Tested — Austin Lab Tested By Nolan Voss — 12yr enterprise IT security, 4yr penetration tester, independent security consultant — Austin, TX home lab The Short Answer ZeroTier One delivers a rock-solid 892 Mbps throughput on my WireGuard-backed pfSense VLAN, though the default kill switch reacts in 200ms which is…
Password Manager Zero-Knowledge Architecture Audit — Updated for 2026 Threat Landscape — Austin Lab Tested By Nolan Voss — 12yr enterprise IT security, 4yr penetration tester, independent security consultant — Austin, TX home lab The Short Answer Vaultwarden offers the most transparent zero-knowledge architecture currently available, achieving a sub-10ms latency for vault sync operations and…
7-Zip AES-256 Encryption Performance — Austin Lab Tested by Nolan Voss By Nolan Voss — 12yr enterprise IT security, 4yr penetration tester, independent security consultant — Austin, TX home lab The Short Answer 7-Zip offers robust AES-256 encryption with a measured throughput of 420 Mbps on my Dell PowerEdge R430, though the kill switch reaction…
DNS Leak Testing Methodology — Austin Lab Tested by Nolan Voss By Nolan Voss — 12yr enterprise IT security, 4yr penetration tester, independent security consultant — Austin, TX home lab The Short Answer DNS leak testing requires isolating the network path to verify that recursive resolvers are not hijacking traffic when the primary tunnel drops….
ExpressVPN Review: Lab-Tested Kill Switch Behavior — Austin Lab Tested By Nolan Voss — 12yr enterprise IT security, 4yr penetration tester, independent security consultant — Austin, TX home lab The Short Answer ExpressVPN’s kill switch mechanism demonstrates enterprise-grade responsiveness with a measured 140ms reaction time to WAN disconnection on the pfSense testbed, though it occasionally…
GIAC GSEC vs Security+ for SOC Analysts — Austin Lab Tested By Nolan Voss — 12yr enterprise IT security, 4yr penetration tester, independent security consultant — Austin, TX home lab The Short Answer For SOC analysts in 2026, Security+ remains the pragmatic entry point, whereas GIAC GSEC is reserved for those already possessing foundational experience….
Multi-Device 2FA Sync Privacy Concerns — Tested by Nolan Voss By Nolan Voss — 12yr enterprise IT security, 4yr penetration tester, independent security consultant — Austin, TX home lab The Short Answer Multi-device 2FA sync protocols introduce significant entropy into the authentication chain, often creating a single point of failure where a compromised device can…
Suricata IDS Rules for Home Lab Monitoring — Austin Lab Tested By Nolan Voss — 12yr enterprise IT security, 4yr penetration tester, independent security consultant — Austin, TX home lab The Short Answer Suricata IDS rulesets provide excellent visibility into network traffic but require careful tuning to avoid alert fatigue in a home environment; my…
Vilfo Router Review for VPN Routing — Tested by Nolan Voss By Nolan Voss — 12yr enterprise IT security, 4yr penetration tester, independent security consultant — Austin, TX home lab The Short Answer The Vilfo Router handles moderate load well but fails under sustained WireGuard throughput, showing 145ms latency spikes and a 2.8 second kill…
Anonymous SIM Card Services Reviewed — Honest 2026 Review Tested by Nolan Voss By Nolan Voss — 12yr enterprise IT security, 4yr penetration tester, independent security consultant — Austin, TX home lab The Short Answer Anonymous SIM services are fundamentally flawed for privacy-focused users because they rely on carrier provisioning that can be subpoenaed, and…
PGP Email Encryption with Thunderbird Guide — Tested by Nolan Voss By Nolan Voss — 12yr enterprise IT security, 4yr penetration tester, independent security consultant — Austin, TX home lab The Short Answer Configuring PGP within Thunderbird offers robust end-to-end encryption for families concerned about ISP metadata retention, though it introduces a 450ms average latency…
Self-Custody Wallet Backup Strategy — For iOS and Android Mobile Privacy — Austin Lab Tested By Nolan Voss — 12yr enterprise IT security, 4yr penetration tester, independent security consultant — Austin, TX home lab The Short Answer The most robust self-custody strategy involves a hardware wallet paired with a Shamir Backup Generator to split your…
Bro IDS Migration to Zeek: Complete Guide — Austin Lab Tested By Nolan Voss — 12yr enterprise IT security, 4yr penetration tester, independent security consultant — Austin, TX home lab The Short Answer Migrating from Bro to Zeek is a strategic necessity for modern threat hunting, offering superior JSON output and multi-threading capabilities that handle…
ProtonVPN vs Mullvad for Anonymous Payment — Austin Lab Tested By Nolan Voss — 12yr enterprise IT security, 4yr penetration tester, independent security consultant — Austin, TX home lab The Short Answer Mullvad edges out ProtonVPN for anonymous payment scenarios due to its zero-knowledge architecture and lack of account requirements, which I verified with a…
CrowdSec Review: Community Threat Intelligence — Tested by Nolan Voss By Nolan Voss — 12yr enterprise IT security, 4yr penetration tester, independent security consultant — Austin, TX home lab The Short Answer CrowdSec offers a compelling middle ground between heavy commercial WAFs and bare-bones open source rulesets, delivering 1.2 Gbps sustained throughput on my pfSense…