Could Illegal Short Selling Improve the Market?

The relentless advance of modern technology opens up whole new realms of financial malfeasance but also probably closes some off. One thing that seems to be getting more difficult is violating Rule 105 of Regulation M, which is the rule forbidding this thing:

This is naughty for reasons that I guess seem intuitive? You're selling at the market price, but the company can't do that; its offering probably comes at a discount to the market price. And then you're covering at the offering price, so you're making a risk-free-ish profit. And since your short sales tend to drive down the market price (and thus the offering price), your profit is at the issuer's expense. Here is the Securities and Exchange Commission's explanation: