How to protect my Automated Trading Soft?

[gtlhbkkj]

Hello All,

I am a beginner and this is my first post.
I am using Sierra Chart for E-mini futures.
Sorry for my paranoid question.

Let me dream (a pipe-dream), that I have created an automated trading soft (in Sierra it is called "Study"), which is permanently bringing a certain profit. It does not matter how much: 10%, 100%, 1000% etc.

My question: how can I protect my soft from others, who will readily join me as "free riders" in the best case and in the worst case drive me from the market. I am talking about illegal copying and disassembling / decompilation of my soft.
.
1 concern:
As long as I am uning Sierra soft, they (Sierra) have evidently absolute control over their soft and are able not only monitoring everything, what I am doing with their soft on my desktop or somewhere else in the world.
.
2 concern:
As long as my dream soft is running on an VPS = virtual private server, the service provider has absolute control over his server and is able not only monitoring everything what is taking place there.
.
3 concern:
My broker monitors all my actions, and when he realized that I am always in the black, he will repeat my orders in the best case. And in the worst case he will push his orders first and sideline my orders.
.
4 concern:
There are definitely other concerns, which I do not know about today.
Please add them if you feel there are more concerns.
.
How can one avoid all mentioned above sticky points in a real life?
Thank you

 

[MattZ]

Are you coming from the Forex cash world?

 

[gtlhbkkj]

No, as I said, it all about E-mini S&P 500.
It has nothing to do with Forex.
But the question is applicable to Forex as well.
.
If it was your joke, sorry, English is not my native language and I am not familiar with slang.

 

[MattZ]

It was not a Joke. Point # 3 discusses a broker pushing his orders first. This is not OTC markets, your orders go to the exchange and reside there. I suggest learning how DMA (Direct Market Access) works.

 

[Millionaire]

1 concern:
As long as I am uning Sierra soft, they (Sierra) have evidently absolute control over their soft and are able not only monitoring everything, what I am doing with their soft on my desktop or somewhere else in the world.

1. If you are paranoid about this then don't use third party software. Write your own.

2 concern:
As long as my dream soft is running on an VPS = virtual private server, the service provider has absolute control over his server and is able not only monitoring everything what is taking place there.

2. If you are paranoid about this as well then don't use a VPS. Host your ATS on your local network.

3 concern:
My broker monitors all my actions, and when he realized that I am always in the black, he will repeat my orders in the best case. And in the worst case he will push his orders first and sideline my orders.

3. If you are paranoid about this then only trade with large reputable brokers eg IB.

4 concern:
There are definitely other concerns, which I do not know about today.
Please add them if you feel there are more concerns.

4. You are not being paranoid enough, you should be able to come up at least 10 more ways your system can be stolen.

 

[MattZ]

How about doing it the right way? Hooking up Sierra to a great feed like Rithmic, CTS, CQG so he gets accurate data and then sends it to the exchange in fairly fast fashion.

Just as an FYI, if we have a good trader, we are happy for him and will further our efforts to help him with what he needs.

 

[fan27]

Hello All,

I am a beginner and this is my first post.
I am using Sierra Chart for E-mini futures.
Sorry for my paranoid question.

Let me dream (a pipe-dream), that I have created an automated trading soft (in Sierra it is called "Study"), which is permanently bringing a certain profit. It does not matter how much: 10%, 100%, 1000% etc.

My question: how can I protect my soft from others, who will readily join me as "free riders" in the best case and in the worst case drive me from the market. I am talking about illegal copying and disassembling / decompilation of my soft.
.
1 concern:
As long as I am uning Sierra soft, they (Sierra) have evidently absolute control over their soft and are able not only monitoring everything, what I am doing with their soft on my desktop or somewhere else in the world.
.
2 concern:
As long as my dream soft is running on an VPS = virtual private server, the service provider has absolute control over his server and is able not only monitoring everything what is taking place there.
.
3 concern:
My broker monitors all my actions, and when he realized that I am always in the black, he will repeat my orders in the best case. And in the worst case he will push his orders first and sideline my orders.
.
4 concern:
There are definitely other concerns, which I do not know about today.
Please add them if you feel there are more concerns.
.
How can one avoid all mentioned above sticky points in a real life?
Thank you

As with anything security, tackle the biggest vulnerabilities first and in your case, that would be the source code for your strategy. But as you mentioned, you have no profitable strategy now so you are better off spending valuable time on figuring out that problem.

 

[Trader13]

1 concern:
As long as I am uning Sierra soft, they (Sierra) have evidently absolute control over their soft and are able not only monitoring everything, what I am doing with their soft on my desktop or somewhere else in the world.

Correct. All your custom code is stored locally on your PC, not their servers, so they have no visibility into your secret sauce. Note that some other charting services may offer backup to their servers as a convenience, and that would enable them to see your code. But that's assuming they would even know you are consistently profitable, which would only be the case if they were also your broker or colluded with your broker.

2 concern:
As long as my dream soft is running on an VPS = virtual private server, the service provider has absolute control over his server and is able not only monitoring everything what is taking place there.

Not clear about who you are referring to as the "service provider." If it's the ATS, they would certainly have visibility into your custom code if it resides on their servers. As a previous poster suggested, keep it local.

3 concern:
My broker monitors all my actions, and when he realized that I am always in the black, he will repeat my orders in the best case. And in the worst case he will push his orders first and sideline my orders.

If he follows your orders, you shouldn't care as it would potentially move the market in your favor. If he front runs your orders, that would degrade your performance somewhat depending on the time frame you are trading. If you really suspected your broker was front running you, change brokers.

4 concern:
There are definitely other concerns, which I do not know about today.
Please add them if you feel there are more concerns.

If you keep your custom code local on your PC, then it's relatively secure. If your PC is stolen, especially with the intention of stealing your custom code, you can still keep it secure by encrypting your drive and using two-factor authentication. But that only works if they steal it while it's powered off.

I tip my hat to your optimism in finding a consistently profitable automated trading strategy.

 

[RedDuke]

Trust my writing successful ATS is your main issue. All other things come later. Your software provider, system host and broker need to collude all together for that to happen. If you paranoid about Sierra, use Ninja Trader, writing your own soft is too much of undertaking. You can encrypt your algoes and then even if all collude (and it is a BIG if) it is still encrypted and can not be decompiled.

 

[Van_der_Voort_4]

Dude,the moment you have something interesting stay away from any so called Russian platforms,Ninjatrader,Multicharts ,all of them.
Whether you will be in possession of such a strategy it is different subject.