Z.AI apologizes after ZCode tool silently uploaded devs' local files without consent
Chinese AI firm Z.ai, maker of the GLM models, faced backlash after developers discovered its ZCode coding assistant was quietly compressing and uploading local project files to Alibaba Cloud storage without permission. One developer found the tool made 564 attempts to exfiltrate a 313MB encrypted archive containing commercial project files, with a smaller 15KB file successfully transmitted before the issue was caught. Z.ai has since apologized, patched the unauthorized uploads, claimed the exfiltrated data was destroyed, and pledged to open-source ZCode for third-party security review.