Insider information is not about the information itself, but rather the source of the information. The exact same piece of information could be insider informa

Insider information is not about the information itself, but rather the source of the information. The exact same piece of information could be insider information or not depending on who you heard it from. Think of it like a watermark or stain on the information. When the information is generated within the "insider" circle, it is permanently stained until that information is made public. Legally, this stain remains no matter how many hops it goes through. However, if the same information is generated by an "outsider" that figured it out, that same information is not stained. Example: Your neighbor Alice is a hotshot executive at BigCorp. If Alice comes over to your BBQ and starts telling you about how bad their upcoming quarter is going to be, that's probably tainted information. However, if your other neighbor Bob comes to your BBQ, and starts talking about how grumpy Alice has been, and she's always grumpy like this when BigCorp is about to have a bad quarter... That's fair game. Same information, different sources. That said, in the US I think there must be some indication or reasonable expectation that you knew or were willingly blind to the non-public status of the information.