Cable theft is the act of obtaining unauthorized access to cable television services. In older analog cable systems, most cable channels were not encrypted and cable theft was easy. often as easy as plugging a coaxial cable attached to the user's television into an apartment house cable distribution box. So cable theft was widespread. In some rural areas nonsubscribers would even run long cables to distribution boxes on nearby utility poles. Set-top boxes were required with some systems, but these were generic and could be obtained by nonsubscribers from thrift stores.
Read more about Cable Theft: Digital Cable Systems
Famous quotes containing the words cable and/or theft:
“To be where little cable cars climb halfway to the stars.”
—Douglass Cross (b. 1920)
“Men are not therefore put to death, or punished for that their theft proceedeth from election; but because it was noxious and contrary to men’s preservation, and the punishment conducing to the preservation of the rest, inasmuch as to punish those that do voluntary hurt, and none else, frameth and maketh men’s wills such as men would have them.”
—Thomas Hobbes (1579–1688)