> Can I have insider knowledge about a company that the company in question doesn't itself know yet?
Yes you can
It's useful to think of this not as "insider knowledge" but the actual term: material non-public information.
Is the information you have material (i.e. will move the stock price)? Is it non-public? Then there you go: it would be ill-advised to trade on it.
Yes. However you can get around it by simply back filing a disclosure (whoops im sorry)after the fact since everyone in congress does it and it has literally never been legally pursued and never will be. I'm not being sarcastic something like 80% of congress disclosures are 2 years late or more. I don't remember the exact numbers but its insane. Just another spin on too big to fail, they can't arrest us because they would have to arrest all of congress and collapse the country.