This is directly from the NATS own wiki on how to decode the encoded NATS links:
NATS4 LinkCodes - TMMwiki
where it says:
Decoding Link Codes
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Encoded link codes can be decoded using base64 decoding, which uses ASCII characters and binary to encode/decode links. For the admins, we built a page that allows for creating/decoding NATS code. The URL should be http://<NATS_URL>.com/admin_codes.php. The affiliates also have a page that is not shown by default. The URL should be http://<NATS_URL>.com/internal.php?page=code_info.
This shouldn't be too hard to implement a fix for. As you see above, the un-encoding of the encoded links that you plan to not support any longer is rather easy to do.
It will be really hard to recruit new affiliates if this is the way the current ones are treated. You say in your original post:
"Whatever we gotta do."
- Well, now it's real easy - it starts with you and what's in Kink's own control. So let's see just how far that promise of "whatever" goes and what it really means when push comes to shove...