Introducing release 1.7

After a (long) period of inactivity, we've started publishing some more routine updates here.

• [DEV] The news engine has been totally written to resolve some loading pains and other bugs that have creeped in. The original engine was from BETA and has been superseded by a system 1/6th the size of its code, and optimized to load a page 75% faster. Not bad! Due to how Kablam works, pages can run on different engines, so it will take a few days for the entire site to be migrated while nothing breaks. The former engine will then be depreciated and retired.
• [DEV] Crushed a major bug around profile & cover photo image uploads that caused the CMS to return a successful upload notification when a security check was flagged. This also deleted the original (good) image resulting in object errors and 404 calls. Major rewrite around object I/O, some security tweaks and updates to how the CMS caches objects and files on the backend.
• [DEV] Backend API calls to Twitter have been updated to keep inline with their backend cadence.
• [DEV] We are (very) aware of some long standing issues around Twitch API & XBox live calls. This is to do with some internal rate limiting as well as some end points relying on (much) older respective API calls. Both modules will get overhauled starting with Twitch. In the interim, certain functionality will resume.
• [DEV] S/MIME TLS signing is now supported within the mail modules. Look for the blue check mark soon on Kablam mail for discoverability.
• [DEV] Various security updates have been implemented to provide more core support for DMARC, SPF and Domain Keys for Email discoverability.
• [DEV] Various tweaks around HSTS between Kablam's edge and our CDN. This is as we start to migrate more stuff to AWS.
• [DEV] Bug squashing, we've tidied up a lot of error handling & squashed a number of low priority bugs in some of our more frequently accessed classes/functions around Kablam. this has dramatically lowered the amount of errors/warnings triggered on the backend.
• [DEV] A number of third party libraries have been updated around the site.
• [DEV] DNSSEC is now implemented across all Kablam Domains (kablam.net, Kablam.org, Kablam.me .etc)
• [DEV] The algorithms and AI behind Kablam's anti-spam and fraudulent registration system have been updated. The system is way more capable in sand-boxing abusive accounts and handling traffic from known bot/spam origins and bad neighborhoods for IP netblocks.
• [DEV] Gamer Dictionary is (finally) out of BETA.
• [DEV] Town of Salem is added as a supported game to News, Categories & Gamer Dictionary.
• [DEV] Updated some caching tools to improve site performance/speed, and tighter rules around objects that should have short TTL's on the CDN.