Insider Trading and Dark Pools...do they have things in common?

[WhiskeyGirl]

Oct. 26

Naples (Fla.) Daily News, on the fine line between investment tips and insider trading:

... Let's say you hear that investors from Abu Dhabi are about to invest in a computer company. So you buy stock in the company, hoping the price will rise when the Arab investors make their purchase.

If that hot tip came from an insider who told you about the Arab investment before the news was public, both of you could go to jail for "illegal insider trading." But if you figured out the Abu Dhabi investment because you saw a fleet of limos visiting the computer company's headquarters, well, then you don't go to jail. You might get rich.

On Oct. 16, Raj Rajaratnam, a billionaire hedge-fund manager, and five other people were accused of illegal insider trading. The feds say they made an illegal $20 million in profits between 2006 and 2009 by using secrets to trade in a variety of companies in the biggest insider-trading case involving a hedge fund. ...

Information is always valuable, and secret information is the most valuable kind. The Securities and Exchange Commission says illegal insider trading is when you violate a trust or confidence and buy or sell a stock using "material, nonpublic information."

read more here - http://www.waow.com/Global/story.asp?S=11400390

When I read stuff like this, I wonder about things like Dark Pools where anonymous people trade large amounts of stock, hidden from the public eye.

Are any of those trading, insiders?  Using insider information?

What is the worst thing that could happen if details of their trading was made public?

They'd pay taxes?  We'd all know that insiders were not involved?

Confidence would be restored in the market?

Same with HFT too.  Who's buying, owning, and selling in nano-seconds?  Why?

Maybe we'd find out they weren't manipulating the market?