UI automation is necessary for accessibility [LWN.net]

UI automation is necessary for accessibility

Posted Jul 14, 2026 8:44 UTC (Tue) by farnz (subscriber, #17727)
In reply to: UI automation is necessary for accessibility by kleptog
Parent article: An update on the scraper situation

If someone hacks my account and then uses that money to buy lotto tickets, the seller of the tickets is never obligated to refund them. It's only between me and my bank.

In the jurisdictions I'm aware of, that's not true - if someone uses my bank card to purchase lotto tickets, then the seller of the tickets either has to show that they required a second factor for authentication (e.g. a PIN), or they get to refund the bank. And this also applies with stolen cash; if I can show that the cash you accepted was stolen from me (unusual that anyone can do this, mind), you get to make me whole (since you accepted stolen property), and the person you gave the lotto tickets to has a debt to you that they've got to repay.

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UI automation is necessary for accessibility

Posted Jul 14, 2026 16:02 UTC (Tue) by kleptog (subscriber, #1183) [Link] (6 responses)

> In the jurisdictions I'm aware of, that's not true - if someone uses my bank card to purchase lotto tickets, then the seller of the tickets either has to show that they required a second factor for authentication (e.g. a PIN), or they get to refund the bank.

At least here, it's the bank that is liable, and they have a contract with the merchant to shift the liability to them. You can't go after the merchant yourself. It's actually fairly evil that the CC company takes 3% but shifts the liabilities to the merchants, that's cartels for you.

But credit cards are one of the more cumbersome payment methods around. It's easier when the site shows a QR code, you scan it, and approve the payment, done.

> And this also applies with stolen cash; if I can show that the cash you accepted was stolen from me (unusual that anyone can do this, mind), you get to make me whole (since you accepted stolen property), and the person you gave the lotto tickets to has a debt to you that they've got to repay.

You're going to have to give me a citation here, because I can't find any examples of this. It appears many countries special case cash so that if you do a cash transaction in good faith you're in the clear. If it wasn't so, people wouldn't accept cash and commerce would fall apart.

(At least for the US it appears to be a common-law principle. For NL it's Article 3:86 BW which protects all good faith transactions in general.)

I really can't imagine any situation where someone stealing money (or equivalent) from you could lead to you having a claim against a third-party.

UI automation is necessary for accessibility

Posted Jul 14, 2026 16:06 UTC (Tue) by farnz (subscriber, #17727) [Link]

You, as the recipient of the cash, are handling stolen goods (at least in the USA and UK). That requires you, as the handler of stolen goods, to return them to the original owner once you become aware that they're stolen, in order for the transaction to count as a "good faith" transaction.

In practice, this is extremely hard to prove - it's not enough that I show that person A stole cash from me, and that they spent cash with you, but I also have to show that person A spent the cash they stole from me with you. But, in that circumstance, where you have the cash that was stolen from me, you're on the hook to return it to me, and you get a claim against the thief.

UI automation is necessary for accessibility

Posted Jul 14, 2026 19:48 UTC (Tue) by Wol (subscriber, #4433) [Link] (4 responses)

> You're going to have to give me a citation here, because I can't find any examples of this. It appears many countries special case cash so that if you do a cash transaction in good faith you're in the clear. If it wasn't so, people wouldn't accept cash and commerce would fall apart.

As far as I'm aware the only way the UK "special case"s cash is as "legal tender". That means, if I owe you money and I offer you legal tender, the OFFER is sufficient to wipe the debt. In law, you have to either accept the cash, or write off the debt.

The only reason cash is "special" is that - as farnz points out - it's incredibly difficult to prove it's stolen. Unless of course it's never officially entered circulation and there's a record of the serial numbers, or it's plastered all over with the ATM ink that explodes everywhere if there's an attempt to steal / break into the ATM.

Cheers,
Wol

Cash payments are special

Posted Jul 15, 2026 21:44 UTC (Wed) by kleptog (subscriber, #1183) [Link] (3 responses)

Which is why I asked for references, because all the ones I could find specifically say they cash is special. See for example [1] which specifically notes the situation was settled for banknotes in the UK in an important case in 1758 which I'm too lazy to look up.

In particular:

> When the identifiability of an asset falls toward zero, the owner’s incentive to search for it after a theft falls toward zero, the buyer’s incentive to investigate title falls toward zero, and the value of any title rule as a deterrent to theft falls toward zero. At that limit, the efficient legal rule is not a better-calibrated allocation between owner and purchaser. It is the abolition of the contest: the recipient in good faith and for value takes a fresh title good against the whole world, and the transaction is final.

If the hypothetical tokens for payment for web access are effectively anonymous and fungible, then every transaction is by definition in good faith and final.

See also the "Money has no earmark" rule.

[1] https://singulargrit.substack.com/p/the-asset-the-law-gav...

Cash payments are special

Posted Jul 16, 2026 8:42 UTC (Thu) by paulj (subscriber, #341) [Link]

> If the hypothetical tokens for payment for web access are effectively anonymous and fungible, then every transaction is by definition in good faith and final.

Just to thread that in with another sub-thread here (which I know Jon has indicated that it should be left to peter out) - this is why Monero (in addition to the much lower transaction fees) is better for online payments to something like Bitcoin. Monero's ledger is not transparent, and hence Monero is fungible - not so for Bitcoin.

Cash payments are special

Posted Jul 16, 2026 9:28 UTC (Thu) by farnz (subscriber, #17727) [Link] (1 responses)

I followed that link, and looked up the case law it references; the key to it is that there are two separate rules around the return of stolen goods:

Compensation for loss; someone stole a car from me, you took it in, failed to make adequate checks for whether it was stolen, and parted it out. I now have a claim against you for the value of the stolen car. The case law the site you reference references says that a good faith cash transaction definitionally cannot fall under this rule - not checking at all qualifies as "adequate checks" for cash, since otherwise it would be impossible for a cash economy to function.
Return of actual stolen property. This is impossible for coins (since any suitable identifying marks would make it not a coin), but is possible, if improbable, for bank notes; if the victim of theft can show that they scrupulously and accurately record the serial numbers of all bank notes of that value that they receive and lose (both spent and stolen), and you have a stolen note in your possession, then this is enough to establish that you must either return the stolen bank note or something of equal value.

Case law only deals with the first of those situations; the second is as-yet untested in court, but based on similar cases with postage stamp collections, it's plausible that the courts would rule that because I'd shown that you had the specific cash stolen from me, you have to return it to me.

Cash payments are special

Posted Jul 16, 2026 14:24 UTC (Thu) by kleptog (subscriber, #1183) [Link]

> Return of actual stolen property. This is impossible for coins (since any suitable identifying marks would make it not a coin), but is possible, if improbable, for bank notes; if the victim of theft can show that they scrupulously and accurately record the serial numbers of all bank notes of that value that they receive and lose (both spent and stolen), and you have a stolen note in your possession, then this is enough to establish that you must either return the stolen bank note or something of equal value.

Nope. That was the whole point of the Miller vs Race 1758 case. At the time cash notes were a sort of "bearer cheques" and so easily identifiable: they had a bank name and a person's signature on it. The judge ruled that, even though the bank note was easily identifiable, it had currency and as far as the law was concerned not identifiable (no earmark).

It has no Wikipedia article, but the equivalent case in Scotland is here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crawfurd_v_The_Royal_Bank

> In a unanimous decision, the judges decided "that money is not subject to any vitium reale; and that it cannot be vindicated from the bona fide possessor, however clear the proof [of] the theft may be";