What is "unknown group" and why is it related to "out of stock" issue?

A small percentage of users report they encountered an "out of stock" issue when attempting to purchase commercial licenses, as the following picture suggests. This is part of the continued effort for Genius Vision to combat the so-called "unknown group". Allow us to explain more in detail as follows.

The rationale

We initially confirmed the existence of the "unknown group" in the news release announced at 2018'10/30. At that time, we have not yet fully grasped the shape of such a group. However, after comprehensively studying a considerable amount of data since then, we are now beginning to understand how such a group works. Thus, an effort is invested to detect and control how Genius Vision software is used, against the malicious strategies conducted by the unknown group. Part of the effort is to control the inventory (e.g. "stock") according to various purchaser information, including the geological area the purchasers are from. However, since falsifying IP addresses is one common skill of the unknown group, we depend not solely on that piece of information. To be clear, if a user encounters an "out of stock" issue, it does not necessarily mean the user is detected as the unknown group. It could mean the license is actually "out of stock", which is a normal business situation and not an "error". It could also mean the user is detected as the unknown group, and therefore received the message. Our strategy against the unknown group is implemented in artificial intelligence and big data. As a common understanding, no A.I. is infallible. It could also be possible that a user does not belong to the unknown group but is detected as one (please check "Remedy for false-positive detection" section below). For security reasons, we cannot disclose or explain which condition the user has encountered.

The basic idea of the "unknown group"

Among the vast amount of information we have analyzed about the unknown group, we have grasped some knowledge of their behaviors. Although we cannot disclose too much information, some basic ideas can be shared with our users. Firstly, the unknown group excels at information manipulation (e.g. feeding disinformation or otherwise misleading information to gain personnel-level control) and social engineering. Their ultimate goal is postulated as to "gain control access to the whole company of Genius Vision". We suspect that the popularity and widespread of our software have made us an easy target. However, if we know what they are after, we can make plans to fight it in order to preserve good user experiences and our honest business conduct. Nevertheless, during this process, the inconvenience may occur. Let us apologize first. For a better tomorrow, let all of us work together to deal with this invisible but rapidly spreading problem of the "unknown group".

Remedy for false-positive detection

If a user does not belong to the unknown group but is detected as one, it's called false-positive detection. We are planning two options to remedy this situation:

Create a special inventory program. That allows the purchasing of limited items at specified MoQ at a limited time.
Revise the distributor program. The root cause of the unknown group can easily target Genius Vision, lies in the holes of our original distributor program. Therefore, we are planning to revise the distributor program to be more concise and reasonable. To get an early preview of such a program, please click here.

NOTE: The two options are merely at the preparation stage. This is because some issue (which is explained at 10/10) needs to be resolved first. Until that issue resolves, these options will not actually proceed.

Thank you for your continued support for Genius Vision products.