Mystery Box(es) Used to Break Into Cars

choi

Nick Bilton, Yes, I Meant to Freeze the Keys; A little household ingenuity may keep your car safe from electronic thieves, until a better solution comes along. New York Times, Apr 16, 2015.
www.nytimes.com/2015/04/16/style ... tronic-thieves.html

Quote:

"In recent months, there has been a slew of mysterious car break-ins in my Los Feliz neighborhood in Los Angeles. What’s odd is that there have been no signs of forced entry. There are no pools of broken glass on the pavement and no scratches on the doors from jimmied locks. But these break-ins seem to happen only to cars that use remote keyless systems, which replace traditional keys with wireless fobs.

"And it happened to our Prius, not once, but three times in the last month. The most recent incident took place on a Monday morning 10 days ago. * * * I watched as the girl, who was dressed in a baggy T-shirt and jeans, hopped off her bike and pulled out a small black device from her backpack. She then reached down, opened the door and climbed into my car.

Note:
(a)
(i) Los Feliz, Los Angeles
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Los_Feliz,_Los_Angeles
(The neighborhood is named after its colonial Spanish-Mexican land grantee, José Vicente Feliz)
(ii) feliz (adjective masculine, feminine; from Latin felix): "happy"
en.wiktionary.org/wiki/feliz

(b) For jimmied locks, see crowbar (tool)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crowbar_(tool)
(informally a jimmy)
(c) For "wireless fob," see keychain
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keychain
(section 4 Key fob)
(d) "put your [wireless car] keys in the freezer [until and unless the car owner is going to use it], which acts as a Faraday Cage, and won’t allow a signal to get in or out.”

Faraday Cage
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faraday_cage
(Faraday cages are named after the English scientist Michael Faraday, who invented them in 1836)
(e) I read the following two years ago (even though I have never owned an auto).

Kyung Lah, Police Stumped by Mystery Device Used in Car Break-ins. CNN, June 21, 2013 (video).
archive.ksdk.com/news/article/385640/28/Police-stumped-by-mystery-device-used-in-car-break-ins