The reason it doesn't work in a flat market or a tight ranging market is because the only way to successfully trade such a period is to use trend lines, which a box does not account for.
The only good box is one that capitalizes on arbitrage situations between markets, and those situations only present themselves for fractions of a second, thus requiring a high-powered computer connected to a colocated server on an exchange floor with quants having programmed the algorithm and watching over it every second that it's in use. These boxes are also successful because they are programmed to hide orders, front run orders, spray orders over multiple ECN's, etc....so that people and other machines cannot pickup on their presence
I don't think the "box" fits any of those descriptions lol.
I have told a few individuals this, but I might as well make it public. I have had a friend working on an automated trading system for over a year @ this point, he has his graduate degree from MIT and has had others from MIT helping him in their spare time. They are nowhere near done, and I am really not expecting it to ever be completed. These things are not easy and they require very highly educated individuals to program them.
Market Data 
Markets 
AI
