Claude Code source leak reveals how much info Anthropic can hoover up about you and your system

Anthropic's Claude Code lacks the persistent kernel access of a rootkit. But an analysis of its code shows that the agent can exercise far more control over people's computers than even the most clear-eyed reader of contractual terms might suspect. It retains lots of your data and is even willing to hide its authorship from open-source projects that reject AI.

The leak of the company's client source code – details of which have been circulating for many months among those who reverse-engineered the binary – reveals that Claude Code pretty much has the run of any device where it's installed.

Concerns about that came up in court recently in Anthropic's lawsuit against the US Defense Department (Anthropic PBC v. U.S. Department of War et al) for banning the company's AI services following the company's refusal to compromise model safeguards.

As part of its justification ...