My anecdote was a bit old and I’m certain some of those devices had soldered cables, meaning that a sheared wire couldn’t be handled by buying a new chord or combining parts of two mice. Because I specifically looked for that a few times with no luck.
But they’re right, these days when you crack open things you often find a connector soldered to the motherboard and the cable is merely plugged in. I think it’s just easier to manufacture. Pick and place, bulk solder and then a machine to plug in the cable, fast as you like, maybe with a loop in it as a poor man’s strain protector.
> meaning that a sheared wire couldn't be handled by [...] combining parts of two mice.
Well, if you're stealing them, you only need parts from one mouse: cut the cable close to the mouse, untangle it from whatever crap it's locked to, take mouse and cable home with you, disassemble mouse, feed cable back though (I think it's called) grommet, strip cable, pick out wires, solder wires to approriate mouse internals, reassemble mouse, done. You have a working mouse with only slightly shorter cable than before.
The point of using soldered cables for security is that setting up a soldering iron near a computer is conspicuous, so you get caught if try to install a attiny85 inside the mouse that way. You can still steal stuff just fine.
But they’re right, these days when you crack open things you often find a connector soldered to the motherboard and the cable is merely plugged in. I think it’s just easier to manufacture. Pick and place, bulk solder and then a machine to plug in the cable, fast as you like, maybe with a loop in it as a poor man’s strain protector.