> And even if there was a clear Sticky Note with foreboding text, you would be in the clear to pocket a stack of cash sitting on the sidewalk, left unattended, guarded only with a sticky note.

That's not true, and not true globally. Unattended valuables being taken is still theft. Though prosecution is rare, it still happens [0].

[0] https://www.macaupostdaily.com/article12506.html

It's not a matter of whether it's theft. Of course it is.

But if you leave your valuables in the street unattended and then come back shocked to discover that they aren't where you left them, this is not a problem that requires new legislation to solve. The solution to preventing this from happening to you in the future is quite obvious and doesn't involve the government.

And if the government manages to catch the thieves, great. But if they don't, c'est la vie.

I suspect that your belief about found things is at odds with the law.

Theft-by-taking has a wholly different level of legal magnitude gravitas than robbing a bank, tho.

I found someone's car keys in the street this morning. I'm pretty sure that didn't entitle me to their car.

No, because keys for a car and keys for a wallet are wholly different, and even then, picking a lock (bruteforcing a keyspace) isn't comparable, because the value, intent, and purpose of a car is not in its properties of being able to be transferred, transmitted, and it's future value increasing (although that last one is true incidentally), but it is primarily used to get from A to B.

If you found a gift card with the PIN in the street, it would entitle you to a moral inhibition. If you went through a stack of discarded gift cards and found ones with change, you would be less morally wrong, but just as legally right.

Finding a debit card in the street with the PIN is akin to finding someone's wallet.dat file on their github. That is stealing, so no comparison.

Thanks for these analogies. People unfortunately want the new technologies to be an exact replacement of the status quo. There’s no reason for it to be the case and the way these technologies work may make it infeasible to enforce the rules of the status quo.

In New York in the 90s I picked up $150 in small bills off the street. Just strewn around in the middle of the day.

It still gives me delight to remember that. I needed the money, but the continuing pleasure in recalling has been worth far more.