Seems like this is going to get interesting for the automakers. I guess theives still have to override other anti-theft features to get the car started, so actual auto theft via this device might be limited to pros, but for theft of items in vehicles and vehicle trunks, it looks like even an amateur could do it.
Well, an Amateur that can build (and one assumes program) his own code catcher/transmitter thingie.
Not sure that includes many car theives. I just checked with my two ghetto dwelling co-workers and they confirm that the tool of choice for most stealing things out of cars theives is a large rock. Slim Jim's are apparanttly too complicated.
As far as jacking the whole car? I don't know of any car sold in the last 10 or 15 years that doesn't have a chipped key, or hard coded anti-theft of some kind. If they can bypass that, I'm not thinking the door locks are much of a deterrent.
Finally, keyless entry has been pretty common for what 20 years now? It was an option on my 95 F150. By '01 is was tandard on a base Crapmaro that My wife had. There hasn't been a huge rash of folks building these things.