Define what you mean by cloaking. Lots of people use redirects and they are fine as long as you arent HIDING or fooling someone into believing they are on a site they arent, including search engines. Thats why you should use 301 redirects for a permanently MOVED page or site.
Read what google says about it.
http://www.google.com/support/webmas...n&answer=66355
Draw your own conclusions.
I totally dont understand the question cloak to prevent THEFT thing, what would they be stealing? You are dishing them to the page anyway so how would it change a thing?
Karen