December 2020 Summaries

Postmark has been working on its Message Streams feature for nearly two years, starting as a concept to improve bulk email sending. The company initially planned to launch the feature in 2019 but shifted focus towards infrastructure updates and the COVID-19 pandemic. Postmark took a slow and steady approach to development, releasing small pieces of the feature every few months and gathering customer feedback. This approach allowed them to adjust their scope and required features as they saw real-world usage, test their messaging and positioning in the real world, create extensive help docs for Day 1 wide availability, and complete the giant project with minimal risk to their business or infrastructure. The Message Streams feature is now available to all Postmark customers by default, with the company continuing its gradual rollout while implementing automated emails to help customers get started.

Laravel debug mode can be a valuable tool for developers, but it also poses a risk to sensitive information such as API keys and passwords. When in debug mode, this information is exposed in plain text, making it vulnerable to exploitation by bad actors using automated tools. If an attacker gains access to these credentials, they can use them to send phishing emails through the Postmark account, potentially compromising the site's reputation and sending reputation. To mitigate this risk, developers are advised to turn off debug mode for live sites and rotate their API tokens to ensure an extra layer of security.