From bec3734676faf3868ea225e0316e77ad5a7e4421 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Gab Virebent <gabriel1@virebent.art>
Date: Sat, 11 Jul 2026 13:37:23 +0200
Subject: Switch Nym WS transport to nym-client's binary protocol, drop second
 base64 layer

Client.Send now speaks nym-client's native binary websocket protocol
(tag || recipient || conn_id || data_len || data) instead of wrapping
the ciphertext in a JSON text message, which required base64-encoding
it a second time on top of the browser's own base64 layer.

The reader's self-address query also switched to the binary protocol:
nym-client picks text-vs-binary for every later "received" push based
on the format of the last request seen on a connection, so leaving the
reader in JSON/text mode would have made nym-client run a lossy UTF-8
conversion over the now-unencoded binary payload, corrupting it. Fixed
the binary Received-frame parsing along the way (previous code assumed
a fixed 16-byte tag with no length prefix, which never matched the real
protocol and was never exercised while the connection stayed text-mode).

Verified end-to-end against the real embedded nym-client 1.1.76 binary,
with the exact wire format cross-checked against upstream nym source at
the pinned build commit.
---
 internal/nym/client.go | 45 ++++++++++++++++++++++-----------------------
 1 file changed, 22 insertions(+), 23 deletions(-)

(limited to 'internal/nym/client.go')

diff --git a/internal/nym/client.go b/internal/nym/client.go
index 89fcf52..e0b14d2 100644
--- a/internal/nym/client.go
+++ b/internal/nym/client.go
@@ -1,8 +1,7 @@
 package nym
 
 import (
-	"encoding/base64"
-	"encoding/json"
+	"encoding/binary"
 	"fmt"
 	"io"
 	"io/fs"
@@ -18,6 +17,7 @@ import (
 // Client sends payloads through the Nym mixnet via an embedded nym-client subprocess.
 type Client struct {
 	journalistAddr string
+	recipient      []byte // parsed 96-byte wire form of journalistAddr
 	wsPort         int
 	dryRun         bool
 	process        *exec.Cmd
@@ -26,8 +26,12 @@ type Client struct {
 	configDir      string
 }
 
-func New(journalistAddr string, binFS fs.FS) *Client {
-	return &Client{journalistAddr: journalistAddr, wsPort: 1978, binFS: binFS}
+func New(journalistAddr string, binFS fs.FS) (*Client, error) {
+	recipient, err := ParseRecipient(journalistAddr)
+	if err != nil {
+		return nil, fmt.Errorf("parse journalist nym address: %w", err)
+	}
+	return &Client{journalistAddr: journalistAddr, recipient: recipient, wsPort: 1978, binFS: binFS}, nil
 }
 
 func NewDryRun(journalistAddr string) *Client {
@@ -75,31 +79,26 @@ func (c *Client) Start() error {
 	return fmt.Errorf("nym-client websocket did not start in time")
 }
 
-type sendMsg struct {
-	Type          string `json:"type"`
-	Message       string `json:"message"`
-	Recipient     string `json:"recipient"`
-	WithReplySurb bool   `json:"withReplySurb"`
-}
-
-// Send delivers payload to the journalist's Nym address through the mixnet.
+// Send delivers payload to the journalist's Nym address through the mixnet
+// using nym-client's binary websocket protocol (tag || recipient || conn_id ||
+// data_len || data). This avoids the JSON+base64 wrapping of the old text
+// protocol, which inflated every payload by ~4/3 before it ever reached the
+// nym-client's own 16MB hardcoded websocket message limit.
 func (c *Client) Send(payload []byte) error {
 	if c.dryRun {
 		fmt.Printf("[dry-run] payload received: %d bytes — would send to %s\n",
 			len(payload), c.journalistAddr)
 		return nil
 	}
-	msg := sendMsg{
-		Type:          "send",
-		Message:       base64.StdEncoding.EncodeToString(payload),
-		Recipient:     c.journalistAddr,
-		WithReplySurb: false,
-	}
-	raw, err := json.Marshal(msg)
-	if err != nil {
-		return fmt.Errorf("marshal: %w", err)
-	}
-	if err := websocket.Message.Send(c.ws, string(raw)); err != nil {
+
+	req := make([]byte, 0, 1+len(c.recipient)+8+8+len(payload))
+	req = append(req, ReqSend)
+	req = append(req, c.recipient...)
+	req = binary.BigEndian.AppendUint64(req, 0) // connection_id: none
+	req = binary.BigEndian.AppendUint64(req, uint64(len(payload)))
+	req = append(req, payload...)
+
+	if err := websocket.Message.Send(c.ws, req); err != nil {
 		return fmt.Errorf("ws send: %w", err)
 	}
 	return nil
-- 
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