This story was originally published by Wired and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. For the first time in four centuries, it's good to be a beaver. Long persecuted for their pelts and reviled as pests, the dam-building rodents are today hailed by scientists as ecological saviors. Their ponds and wetlands store water in the face of drought, filter out pollutants, furnish habitat for endangered species, and fight wildfires. In California, Castor canadensis is so prized that the state recently committed millions to its restoration.

On the screen in front of me is a mountain range. Moving toward my troops from the top-right corner is an ominous yellow dot. I suspect it's an enemy drone, but it could be a bird or a civilian aircraft, so I ask my long-range camera to home in on it. Within seconds, it returns a snapshot of a wide-winged military drone. The incoming dot turns from yellow to red, signifying a threat.

FBI Director Christopher Wray has warned about the national security threat posed by Beijing's AI program. During a panel at the World Economic Forum, Wray explained that Beijing's AI program "is not constrained by the rule of law". Wray says Beijing has "a bigger hacking program than any other nation" and will use machine learning to further boost the capabilities of its state-sponsored hackers. Much like nuclear expertise, AI can be used to benefit the world or harm it. "I have the same reaction every time," Wray explained.

Australia's second-biggest appliances chain says it is pausing a trial of facial recognition technology in stores after a consumer group referred it to the privacy regulator for possible enforcement action. In an email on Tuesday, a spokesperson for JB Hi-Fi Ltd said The Good Guys, which JB Hi-Fi owns, would stop trialling a security system with optional facial recognition in two Melbourne outlets. Use of the technology by The Good Guys, owned by JB Hi-Fi Ltd, was "unreasonably intrusive" and potentially in breach of privacy laws, the group, CHOICE, told the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC). While the company took confidentiality of personal information seriously and is confident it complied with relevant laws, it decided "to pause the trial … pending any clarification from the OAIC regarding the use of this technology", JB Hi-Fi's spokesperson added. The Good Guys was named in a complaint alongside Bunnings, Australia's biggest home improvement chain, and big box retailer Kmart, both owned by Wesfarmers Ltd, with total annual sales of about 25 billion Australian dollars ($19.47m) across 800 stores.

Last week, the Justice Department announced a newly revised policy for when prosecutors should charge people under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, the decades-old, controversial anti-hacking law. Many of the fights around the CFAA have hinged on what is--and is not--illegal hacking: If a mother violates a website's terms of service by creating a social media profile with a photo of someone else and a fake name, for instance, does that qualify? Or if a police officer searches a government license plate database for personal reasons, instead of work reasons, is that hacking? What about if a Major League Baseball team guesses a former employee's password and uses it to download information about his new team? Or a college student tries to find bugs in a voting app as part of an election security course?

Left-wing activist Michael Moore claimed Sunday that U.S. defense policy and spending should be refocused from military involvement in other countries to instead fight climate change, White supremacy and the coronavirus pandemic. Appearing on MSNBC, Moore suggested U.S. armed forces weren't "the good guys" because of their military involvement in countries like Syria and Somalia, and instead claimed he wanted to be known for doing "the good things," like building wells in poor villages rather than provide funding to Israel's Iron Dome defense system. "As we speak tonight the U.S. still has 2,500 troops in Iraq. Last week the U.S. military admitted that a drone strike in Kabul that killed ten innocent civilians was an American drone strike. Seven of them were kids. We talk about ending the war but we're still going to carry on with drones, we're still going to carry on with these, quote, over-the-horizon operations. You know, we are still at war," host Mehdi Hasan said after playing a clip of President Joe Biden touting the U.S. not being at war for the first time in 20 years.

Dear Prudence is online weekly to chat live with readers. Here's an edited transcript of this week's chat. In just a few weeks, the days will start getting longer. Let's just hold on until then. Not my type: My older co-worker has a "puppy crush" on me. This is encouraged by our office matriarchs. The sexual desire on my part is nil.

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos warned American technology companies to resist bowing to employee pressure to "turn their backs" on the Pentagon and the defense of the United States. "One of the things happening inside technology companies is there are groups of employees who, for example, think that technology companies should not work with the Department of Defense," said Bezos during a discussion at the Reagan National Defense Forum on Friday, which is also available on Fox Nation. "People are entitled to their opinions," continued Bezos, "but it is the job of the senior leadership team to say, 'No.'" In 2018, Silicon Valley giant Google made the controversial decision to withdraw its bid to work on a Pentagon initiative called Project Maven, which used artificial intelligence to analyze data captured by U.S. government drones. More than 3,000 Google employees signed a letter addressed to company CEO Sundar Pichai protesting Google's involvement.

Have you ever had a legitimate credit card transaction declined on the Web or your smartphone? It's a real hassle, to be sure. But now, thanks to a new payment protocol being introduced by Mastercard that relies on deep learning to authenticate purchasers, you should see fewer false positives, less fraud, and faster approvals to boot. Billions of dollars are on the line in the battle for control of the nation's electronic payment byways. Fraudsters are eager to exploit any technological weakness to steal others' hard-earned money, while banks, retailers, and consumers just want to make transactions as simple and secure as possible.

HALIFAX, NOVA SCOTIA – The top U.S. military officer said Saturday that it's problematic that American tech companies don't want to work with the Pentagon but are willing to engage with the Chinese. U.S. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Joseph Dunford told the Halifax International Security Forum that the U.S. and its allies are the "good guys." "I have a hard time with companies that are working very hard to engage in the market inside China … then don't want to work with the U.S. military," he said. "I just have a simple expression: "We are the good guys." Earlier this year, thousands signed a petition asking Google's chief executive to cancel Project Maven, which provides the Pentagon with the company's artificially intelligent algorithms to interpret video images and improve the targeting of drone strikes. Google later said it would scuttle the project, according to published reports. Dunford avoided mentioning Google by name, but said companies that share intellectual property with Chinese entrepreneurs are essentially sharing it with the Chinese military. Google is reportedly worked on a mobile version of its search engine that will comply with strict censorship controls in China. "This is not about doing something that's unethical, illegal or immoral," he said. "This is about ensuring that we collectively can defend the values for which we stand.