How is the service drop or service lateral of a residential electric service protected from overcurrent?
There isn't one

Just your main breaker. That's it.  

The presumption is that the area prior to the main breaker is exceedingly simple, with nothing tapped there, so a problem there would be unlikely.  

That's also why this is a bad idea.

Collecting data about electrical accidents is what the NFPA does for a living, so clearly, "unlikely" is proven out by statistical analysis.  If incidents were occurring at a rate of concern, they would be acting to deal with it, and their NEC codebook or UL standards would soon be updated to reflect it.  

It wouldn't take a whole lot to add a fusible link to the input bussing of a meter, so that's an easy action UL can simply mandate.  If it were necessary.  The fact that they haven't says a thing or two.