Isn't the "intelligence" needed to hack a non virgin/sky/ex ntl/telewest box negated by the auto updates those boxes do, or can be made to do.
I've led a sheltered life and have never heard about those other boxes until today, when a co-worker who I held in high respect actually asked me for a certain cable to do something to his illegal box to get his tv back.
Changed my opinion of him since reading about the code changing thing.
Still, people cant complain if someone "stealing" bandwidth via any means, drops their download speeds for 20mbit to say 2mbit on illegal torrent downloads at peak times
The irony is pretty annoying, even for me.