At Autotuner we always opted for transparency. On a daily basis, we are concerned about the clarity of the information we communicate to our customers. Our offer is simple and crystal clear : we offer a tool at an attractive price without subscription. All the required accessories are included in the package and all compatible vehicles are listed on our website. To help you make the best choice, we make a point of communicating our value proposition clearly and accurately.
Internet connection
For several decades, counterfeiting has taken a considerable dimension and the chiptuning market has unfortunately not been spared. If most chiptuning tools require a continuous internet connection, it is primarily to fight against this phenomenon. The Autotuner technology we want to protect represents thousands of lines of computer code. We have therefore legitimately decided to store our know-how securely on our servers.
Apart from this aspect, the internet connection gives us an extraordinary flexibility to keep our tools up to date. That way, as soon as you start the software, you instantly benefit from the latest improvements.
In the explanations that follow, we will distinguish three main elements: the software, the tool and the server.
- The tool is the hardware device physically connected to the diagnostic socket of the vehicle or to the ECU.
- The server is a dedicated computer infrastructure running 24/7 that contains all of our know-how. It is connected to the internet network using high speed dedicated connections.
- The software is installed on a computer and its role is to establish a link between the tool and the server.
How Autotuner tool works
Step 1 : Software start
As soon as the software starts, the tool is authenticated by the server and the server verifies if an update is available for the connected tool. Next, any update is downloaded and installed on the computer and/or the tool with the prior consent of the user. At the end of this first step, the list of all compatible vehicles is synchronized with our server.
Step 2 : Operation selection
When a user wishes to perform an operation on a vehicle, the software downloads the set of data required to execute the selected operation.
Step 3 : Operation execution
Then the software sends the protocol data to the Autotuner tool. In write operation, the software also sends the tuned file to be written to the tool. When the tool has received the data, the operation is executed.
Our case
The tuned file belonging to the user enters the Autotuner environment only during a write operation. The transfer of the optimized file from the software to the tool is clearly shown to the user, it is never in contact with the server.
When performing an operation, the tool communicates with the Autotuner server obviously generating data traffic in both directions (upload and download). Depending on the selected ECU, the tool might need to retrieve a password, or to ask the server to compute an authentication key, or to communicate a short cryptographic hash to the server when correcting checksums of a tuned file, or any other task where an interaction with the server is needed. This generates negligeable data transfers to the server which usually amounts to a maximum of some tens of kilobytes. Therefore, we can claim that it is physically impossible to transfer a file from our tool to the server without the user’s knowledge, even if the data is compressed.
The Autotuner software has never uploaded any tuned data from any of its customers to its server infrastructure. However, for the sake of transparency, a counter located in the lower right corner of the software main window now allows you to view the traffic sent to and received from the server in real time. The data displayed there is directly provided by the Microsoft libraries used by the software. The four operations listed below (executed on a Bosch EDC17C50 ECU) have uploaded a total of 31.18 kB of data to the server and have downloaded 176.78kB of data from the server. The only operation that handles the tuned file is the write operation. It is clear that it has only uploaded 2.68 kB and downloaded 42.13 kB.
Unlock :
ECU identification :
ECU read :
ECU write :
Finally, we invite people who care about the protection of their personal data to check the amount of data transferred during any operation performed by Autotuner. Here are some pieces of software that allow you to analyze incoming and outgoing traffic from your computer to the internet : https://www.netadmintools.com/bandwidth-monitor/#BWMonitor
The entire team remains at your disposal if you have any question.
On behalf of all Autotuner resellers, we would like to thank our clients for the loyal trust they place in Autotuner.
