Claude Code audited four AI tools and found spyware in three

starmex@starmexxx

Claude Code found spyware behavior in three out of four AI tools i was paying for. they were sending way more than just my prompts.

i asked Claude to audit every outbound connection from my Mac and flag anything that was sending data i didn't agree to. i was paying $900/mo across four subscriptions. figured i should at least know what they're doing with my code.

here's what it found:

Cursor Ultra ($200/mo):
sending full project files to external servers, not just the lines you highlight. entire repo structure, .env files, git history. all of it. every time you open a project.

ChatGPT Pro ($200/mo):
clipboard history being logged. anything you copy and paste into the app stays on their servers permanently even if you delete the conversation. Sam Altman's company is burning $14B this year. your data is how they're training the next model.

SuperGrok Heavy ($300/mo):
the desktop app was reading browser tabs that weren't even part of the conversation. open tabs, URLs, page titles. Elon charges $300/mo and gets your browsing activity as a bonus.

Claude Max ($200/mo):
the only one that came back clean. no background data collection outside of the active conversation. i'll give Dario Amodei that one.

i cancelled three subscriptions that night. $700/mo gone.

then i replaced all four with open source models running on a used RTX 3090 i got for $500. same quality. no data leaving my machine. total running cost is about $8/mo in electricity.

the full setup is in the image below. every command is copy paste. took me 20 minutes.