It could be done if nvidia cooperated. It's basically impossible to use a nvidia gpu without the driver software which _is_ networked. Nvidia already added malware to their drivers before to stop mining so blocking some stolen cards would not be out of the question.
They absolutely can though. The driver has the ability to connect to the internet and the company has shown that limiting hardware via software is something they do.
Nvidia drivers work just fine with no networking, I've used them so frequently.
The anti-mining technique that Nvidia uses depends on firmware modifications as well. Thus the firmware of these stolen GPUs must already support such a banlist.
You could in theory keep it fully offline but at some point you are likely to accidentally allow it network access or want to update the driver and if that happens, the card is bricked. It also makes the cards completely worthless on the second hand market.
