HTTP over the mixnet

Summary. Every HTTP request Goblin makes (NIP-05 name resolution and registration, the price feed, avatar fetches) goes through the local Nym SOCKS5 proxy as a socks5h://127.0.0.1:1080 proxy. Generous timeouts account for mixnet latency. There is no clearnet HTTP path.

Motivation

It would be easy to leave “just a name lookup” or “just the price” on the clear net. Goblin deliberately doesn’t: a name lookup reveals who you’re about to pay, and any clearnet request reveals your IP and ties you to the app. The rule is simple and absolute: everything over the mixnet, so there’s no accidental leak to audit for.

How it works

http_request_bytes() builds a reqwest client configured with the Nym proxy and a fixed goblin-wallet user agent, sends the request, and returns (status, body). Because the proxy URL uses the socks5h scheme, DNS resolution happens inside the proxy (mixnet), not locally. The timeout is generous (60 s) because the mixnet adds deliberate per-hop delay: a name lookup that would be instant on the clear net might take a couple of seconds here, which is fine for the interactions involved. A string-bodied convenience wrapper, http_request(), sits on top.

Callers include:

• NIP-05 resolution (/.well-known/nostr.json?name=…), registration/release (NIP-98-authenticated POST/DELETE), and reverse name-by-pubkey lookup.
• Avatars: fetching a contact’s image from the authority.
• Price: the fiat/BTC rate for the amount preview.

Reference

In goblin/src/nym/mod.rs:

• SOCKS5_HOST / SOCKS5_PORT = 1080; proxy_url() → socks5h://127.0.0.1:1080; socks5_addr() → 127.0.0.1:1080 (raw TCP for the relay transport).
• http_request_bytes(method, url, body, headers) -> Option<(u16, Vec<u8>)>: reqwest client with Proxy::all(proxy_url()), user_agent("goblin-wallet"), 60 s timeout.
• http_request(...): String-bodied wrapper.

References

• Where these calls originate: NIP-05 name authority (goblin/src/nostr/nip05.rs), and the price/avatar fetchers.
• The proxy itself: The in-process mixnet client.