Cable freeloaders kept at bay

HOW can cable companies scramble television waves? Cable companies use something that looks similar to a stereo receiver to send the television signal through and scramble it.

The box may be mounted on a rack on the wall. At the cable company headquarters, they will add a half-a-line of video, for example, to throw the picture off. (The sound is not affected.) Then people who pay for the service are given the code to unscramble the transmission. Some cable television companies scramble the signal before sending it to the satellite. Then cable companies pick up a scrambled signal, decode it, and send it out to those who pay.