Val Kilmer, sending your face to Gemini and quite the masterful criminal

• Heartthrob Val Kilmer is making his 2026 debut this year as an AI avatar in the movie "As Deep As The Grave".  Permission was granted to the movie makers by his estate, allowing post-humous use of his name, image and likeness to complete the movie.

• 

• Speaking of NIL, Google sits in on another class action lawsuit in Illinois because a man decided to upload his picture, asking Gemini to make him look a bit more business-like for LinkedIn, wearing a suit and adding some hair. Specifically, the complaint asserts Google and its Gemini program did not secure Adams' written consent before allegedly improperly scanning his face in the uploaded photo to edit and modify the image. This, along with collecting, storing, using, manipulating and then eventually deleting this data may have violated BIPA for many, many others.

• Phishing into apple accounts can prove to be quite lucrative for 34 year old Kwamaine Jerell Ford out of Georgia. While he was under ankle monitor surveillance for similar crimes committed in 2019, he has managed to hack into famous NBA and NFL player's apple accounts totaling over 2000 transactions, spending over $325,000. The phishing scams lead to wire fraud, computer fraud, aggravated identity theft, access device fraud and sex trafficking.

Today's takeaway

Before you post your pictures into LLM's be sure you know what will be done with your images... the terms of service matter. As well, they will matter after death, as can be seen by the rich and famous that are being revived but this can be done at anyone's expense. As well, for all measures provided by Apple, the weakest link is often human. Phishing scams is still one of the most used, and useful tools for ID theft. Please be sure to double check your gut feeling when you don't expect an email in your inbox.

---

The SEC Just Classified 16 Cryptocurrencies as Digital Commodities

On March 17, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) issued an interpretive guidance classifying 16 cryptocurrencies as "digital commodities" ( not securities) and establishing a taxonomy for most of the other assets in the sector.

The 16 Cryptocurrencies are:

Bitcoin (BTC)

Ethereum (ETH)

XRP, Solana (SOL)

Cardano (ADA)

Avalanche (AVAX)

Polkadot (DOT)

Chainlink (LINK)

Litecoin (LTC)

Bitcoin Cash (BCH)

Stellar (XLM)

Hedera (HBAR)

Tezos (XTZ)

Dogecoin (DOGE)

Shiba Inu (SHIB)

Aptos (APT)



Meaning that these companies that once stood on the fringe, now have legal frameworks within which they can operate.  This is an important move in the digital assets Crypto Industry, as acceptance begins to have backing from the government.