Should I buy a Faraday box/bag for my car keys?

[Packard]

I just read an article that says that thieves can replicate my keyless car fob from a distance ranging from 120 to 168 feet depending on the power of the device the thieves are using and the range of my key fob.

That means that a thief could park briefly in front of my house and copy my key fob (just 80 feet from the road) and then steal my car. The answer is to put the keys in a Faraday box, safe or bag when I get home.

The bags and boxes are cheap enough (available from Amazon for about $20.00. Secure, lockable safes can cost as much as $350.00, but seem silly to me, as they seem certain to yield to the type of tools that thieves use.

At any rate, my credit card and driver’s license are now carried in a Faraday wallet. I think I am going to decide to get the Faraday key fob bags too. Maybe we should make our housed into giant Faraday structures.

This whole thing is very annoying. I should stop reading news articles.

 

[MacBoy]

Just yesterday I said to the wife, “Prioritize the things that need worrying, and let go of the small stuff.”

I decided to not worry about such things and to keep on truckin’

 

[Cheese]

This whole thing is very annoying. I should stop reading news articles.

 

[ChuckS]

It happened in Toronto and it was in the news (and can probably be found on YouTube). If you are worried, do what some of my friends there do: put your car fobs in a small tin can in your house.

 

[Packard]

In the late 1960s, my younger brother became an avid audiophile. He bought the latest and greatest amp, tuner and (very early) Ampex cassette recorder.

As soon as he had done all that, he cancelled his subscriptions to all the audio magazines.

I asked him why. He said, “If I keep getting the magazines, I’m going to want to keep replacing the perfectly good components I now have.”

I think he had the right idea back then.

Since there is almost no good news, it might still be good advice.

 

[smorgasbord]

Any remote key enabled car worth stealing should have remote-access GPS tracking, no? Like, who steals a Tesla?
And for old cars that actually need a physical key, you can pop off the distributor cap.

The bigger concern is privacy: today's cars store GPS data, not just in the navigation system, but also in their black boxes. Ah, I fondly remember my '66 Mustang....

 

[luvmytoolz]

I don't think they're actually replicating the fob in these cases, I thought they were using wire/antennas to amplify and extend the signal so they can start the car remotely?

 

[Packard]

I think they copy the signal onto another device. Then use that device to start to start the car. I read that these copying devices are now available for about $20.00. So a democratizing of car thievery.

Some of the newest cars have electrons key fobs that will turn themselves off when not moving. So those devices would not be susceptible, except while you have them in your pocket and are walking. A manual “off” switch would be a simple method, but an extra step. Or maybe they could some sort of lock-like device that uses a mechanical key to start cars?