ZCode Uploads Full Git History and Workspace Data to Cloud on Login

Data Collection Scope and Method

Evidence has emerged that ZCode (a coding tool by Jifoo AI) encrypts and uploads users' entire workspaces and Git histories to Alibaba Cloud (OSS) while logged in. Analysis revealed that 86.6% of the uploaded data consists of .git folder contents, meaning the full repository lineage—including sensitive information such as previously deleted API keys and internal hostnames—is transmitted. The actual captured .enc file size was confirmed to be 313MB.

The upload process is as follows:

• The client receives upload credentials and an RSA public key from the server.
• The workspace is encrypted with AES-256-CTR, and the symmetric key is encrypted with RSA-OAEP before being sent to the server.
• Since the decryption key exists only on the server, users cannot view or verify the uploaded data locally.

Settings Ignored and Forced Execution

Even if users disable the relevant features in settings, the background pipeline continues to operate.

• The optimizeBehavior and repoSnapshotIndexing toggles only control whether model training data is used or server indexing occurs; they do not block the creation and upload of local snapshots.
• If a valid JWT token exists, the capture sidecar starts unconditionally regardless of login status, triggered before prompt input or upon task completion.

Lack of Policy and Defense Strategies

ZCode's privacy policy only mentions the collection of conversation content, with no disclosure regarding the unauthorized upload of entire workspaces and Git histories. Since manual deletion of local files triggers re-capture and upload attempts, setting filesystem-level immutability flags is necessary for effective blocking.

• macOS: chflags uchg ~/.zcode/v2/checkpoints
• Linux: sudo chattr +i ~/.zcode/v2/checkpoints

This measure blocks disk I/O, eliminating the artifacts for the upload pipeline to transmit, without affecting general chat or code autocomplete features.