Cable pirates generally don't know how to terminate coax. There's terminators that require a special tool to remove intended to deter cable theft but the design

Cable pirates generally don't know how to terminate coax. There's terminators that require a special tool to remove intended to deter cable theft but the design of those terminators means that just about anyone who's determined can open it with something like a fork. If they can't open it, they can always just disconnect one of the neighbors and use that or try to remove one of the terminators via brute force and break the tap. Cutting the drop cable would be very obvious to a cable thief and they wouldn't be able to do anything without being able to terminate coax.