AFAIU, the use of material non-public information always qualifies as insider trading. It does not matter how you got it, and it does not even matter if you work at the company.
See https://www.investopedia.com/terms/m/materialinsiderinformat...
Well, it sort of does. In fact, that's almost all that matters.
Insider trading is all about obligations. If someone who had the obligation to keep the info secret gave it to you and then you went and traded on it, then yes, you're breaking the law.
But if, say, you figure it out by accidentally stumbling on a draft Splunk web page that has a Cisco copyright buried in the code, you don't have any obligation to not trade on that.
It's the same information but the only thing that's different is how you got it. The company and its shareholders are the ones who are harmed by insider trading, so if you're entrusted with the info and trade then you're basically breaching your duty to the company (or the chain of people who shared the info with you). But if the company fucks up and leaks the info then you don't have any obligation to not use it.
> Material nonpublic information is data relating to a company that has not been made public but could have an impact on its share price. It is against the law for holders of nonpublic material information to use the information to their advantage in trading stocks.
Edit: or would a leak on a webpage be considered “public”? I recall a podcast where they said that if you saw a company’s factory blow up while in an airplane, it would be illegal (insider trading) to trade on this information until the news was announced publicly.