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Grok CLI uploaded the whole home directory to GCS

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Re: Grok CLI uploaded the whole home directory to GCS

#211

Why do people run and install these agents locally? No container nothing. I am running Opencode in WSL2 with the windows mounts disabled.

So the idea is that these should be treated as programs in an extremely low trust environment, akin to running malware in a VM?

Re: Grok CLI uploaded the whole home directory to GCS

#212
post #71

Important to clarify that this was not the Grok agent deciding to read the files. I don't think the LLM had anything to do with this decision at all. It looks like the Grok tool starts a session by deterministically kicking off a full upload of the user's current repository (and maybe their directory if not version tracked? Not clear if this user had previously run "git init" in their home directory) to Grok's server…

[flagged]

Re: Grok CLI uploaded the whole home directory to GCS

#213

So many of the replies are saying that they should've restricted access using .md files and whatnot. Is really any guarantee that they even follow those? It seems like even if you ask pretty please don't touch those files, there's a chance they will. So many people have just willingly installed spyware on their computers and big tech calls this the next big thing.

I don't understand why the AI world does this. We don't need new security. We have security at home. It starts with sudo -u restricteduser myagent Your OS knows how to restrict access to things, you don't have to trust a pinkey promise from a vendor.

You will want at least a separate session for the `restricteduser`: E.g. with X11, a process in the same session can do almost anything with your input/output. And most Linux distributions make it really hard to disable external device access for individual users...

Re: Grok CLI uploaded the whole home directory to GCS

#214

Why do people run and install these agents locally? No container nothing. I am running Opencode in WSL2 with the windows mounts disabled.

So the idea is that these should be treated as programs in an extremely low trust environment, akin to running malware in a VM?

yes, this is basically experimental tech, if used with open source harnesses. if used with proprietary harnesses, treat as actual malware.

Re: Grok CLI uploaded the whole home directory to GCS

#215

We all know the dangers of running agents with no permissions on our laptop. The good news is its now just as easy to spin up a sandbox in the cloud for an experiment or coding session than it is on your laptop. Possibly easier since laptop sandboxes aren't as cut and dry as a new cloud VM. exe.dev is my sandbox infra of choice. You get a new sandbox in literally a second with SSH and a coding agent (Shelley) built i…

How would it mitigate this issue? Presumably you'd need all the code for a given project inside the sandbox anyways, so the agent will still be able to upload everything. The only thing it might mitigate is you accidentally uploading your home directory.

Re: Grok CLI uploaded the whole home directory to GCS

#216

We all know the dangers of running agents with no permissions on our laptop. The good news is its now just as easy to spin up a sandbox in the cloud for an experiment or coding session than it is on your laptop. Possibly easier since laptop sandboxes aren't as cut and dry as a new cloud VM. exe.dev is my sandbox infra of choice. You get a new sandbox in literally a second with SSH and a coding agent (Shelley) built i…

> We all know the dangers of running agents with no permissions on our laptop.

Some/maybe most of the HN crowd, sure, but as a rule ... definitely not. People are generally happy to take whatever the path of least resistance is.

I know quite a few civilians (even C-level people) who "heard openclaw was cool" (or whatever) and downloaded the first installer they found and hit enter/run without thinking twice.

Re: Grok CLI uploaded the whole home directory to GCS

#217
post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He said it’s less than a software, so saying software does this too isn’t really a strong counter argument. In case, I don’t think you are really in disagreement. Restricted accounts are necessary is your point, but I think op is saying they aren’t sufficient.

One of the default users is "nobody" which isn't associated with any software. It's definitely above that.

Is it less secure if I simply have nothing to do with language models whatsoever? I take that to be the parents point, but I know you are correct and yes, user restrictions should be a necessary part of the way people who use LLMs setup their system to use them in a safe manner.

Re: Grok CLI uploaded the whole home directory to GCS

#218

So many of the replies are saying that they should've restricted access using .md files and whatnot. Is really any guarantee that they even follow those? It seems like even if you ask pretty please don't touch those files, there's a chance they will. So many people have just willingly installed spyware on their computers and big tech calls this the next big thing.

This was posted on HN yesterday: https://gist.github.com/cereblab/dc9a40bc26120f4540e4e09b75f...

If it’s to be trusted, it has nothing to do with the “agent” or what’s sent to the LLM. The harness will just straight up package the folder it’s run from and upload it to Google Cloud Storage.

Re: Grok CLI uploaded the whole home directory to GCS

#220
post #57

So many of the replies are saying that they should've restricted access using .md files and whatnot. Is really any guarantee that they even follow those? It seems like even if you ask pretty please don't touch those files, there's a chance they will. So many people have just willingly installed spyware on their computers and big tech calls this the next big thing.

I don't understand these people. Agent instructions in markdown is barely a suggestion. I have one which says "All code in this repository is executed in docker containers, run the services with `docker compose run --rm php-cli "$@"`. Gemini and Claude more often than not refuse to abide and will try to execute the environment using /opt/homebrew/bin/php on my host…

Right: it’s just context, it’s not a contract. Same with “skills”.
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