> No, the Apple example is excellent. I forget what the name of the blog is but there's an investor who investigates firms for fraud, shorts their stock, then publishes his finding. It's not illegal in the slightest and is a public service.

Err... If you're thinking about the handful of self-proclaimed "activist investors" who frequently end up massively short after "investigating" the stocks they abandon, please spend some time reading http://www.deepcapture.com. You'll find their names in rather dubious company -- including Madoff, incidentally -- and associated with mountains of illegal activity.