Privacy Concerns When Exporting

There is the Import/Export window, and that let's you import/export trading systems, alerts, saved charts, and custom indicators.

When exporting, your information is saved as an ordinary text file. You can read the contents by opening the file in Notepad, Wordpad, Microsoft Word, or whatever other program you normally use for text files. Like this:

If you add a password when you export the file, most of it will just be garbled text. Like this:

The very basic details are left unencrypted, but everything else is unreadable. The encryption level is pretty strong.

You can then give that file to a friend, sell it, use it as a backup, or use it to copy your settings to a different ATM settings file of your own.

There are some complications with importing/exporting, and most of them centre around the fact that you could be importing something that you yourself exported; or you could be importing something that somebody else exported.

If you are importing your own exported file, you probably want the same accounts to be re-selected for you. The only way to achieve that is to include the account information in the exported file. That is to say, these exported text files may contain private information that you don't want other people to see.

Only the description you gave for the account is exported (e.g. "My FXCM demo account") - not the account number. But there's every possibility that you typed the account number as part of that description (e.g. "My FXCM live account #12345678").
 

The easy workaround

If you intend to give your exported file to someone else, the solution is very easy. In ATM make a copy of whatever it is you intend to export. Edit that copied version. Remove any private information. Export the copied version instead.
 

Protecting your secret sauce

Use a password when you do the export. That will encrypt the file. For someone to be able to import your encrypted file, they need that password. But the password doesn't unlock the file completely - it just lets them do the import.

Someone successfully importing an encrypted file still won't be able to see the trading rules, etc (if it's a trading system, and alerts and custom indicators can also be obfuscated like this). The person will be able to backtest and trade with that encrypted system / alert / custom indicator. But they won't be able to see how it works. As in, you can sell your fantastic trading system, other people can trade using that system, but your methods are kept secret.
 

Statuses of trading systems and alerts

All imported trading systems and alerts have their status set to "Disabled". Check all details are correct before enabling.