i have noticed that a lot of people refer to swim or a foaf instead of mentioning the persons name when they are explaining extractions or possession of drugs etc.

i am curious, since it seems quite likely that from time to time people may in fact be referring to themselves (i could of course be completely wrong) does the use of "someone who isn't me" actually prevent legal ramifications when discussing illegal activities? is it illegal to say that you are producing an illegal substance? or is it out of fear that law enforcement might use a post online as justification for a warrant to kick your door in, and if that is the case would substituting "I" with "SWIM" prevent that from happening? or is it to do with keeping the site itself out of trouble, like if it is seen to be full of people talking about themselves making drugs it could be bad for the site? but again.. would saying swim prevent this?

this is just a curiosity since i have always been inclined to just say it is me who i am talking about.. but after seeing how many people in drug forums refer to a foaf or swim i have started to wonder.

I think it's basically some sort of paranoia of someone giving a F'k about your doings. If one is afraid of www one shouldn't probably use it.
You can use the search function as this has been discussed before.

because it has never beenproven to help with the legalities side, i have seen it more as tradition.

You see many people dont know that SWIM started on the hive, a website run by Strike, the publisher of Total synthesis 1 & 2

He was the finest MDMA chemist of the 90's. A sort of Owsley for the chemical generation, and he run a site much like this, for help of the production of, but not limited to MDMA and amphetamins. the theme of the site was bees obviously, wich is why there were batches of pills printed with bee symbols. they had a little rhym : Here i lye, buzzin like a bee, suckin' on a pill of XTC ;P

Unfortunatly, The show X-files took an interest in the hive and strike, and made an epissode about them. with the view ratings of the show at the time, you can imagine media interest grew, and an investigation was started that not only brought strike down, revealing that he was selling illicit chems for the manufactor of mdma and amphetamins, but also a group of his followers, a group of uni students.

So in answer, i cant speak for anyone else, but if i ever say SWIM, it is not out of paranoia, but out of homage, to a really bould young lad, and to hit website, that was really the beginning of shared knowlage through the internet on the counterculture that we live in *salute*

I think for the first week or so I was using SWIM out of paranoia, and then I just got lazy and un-paranoid and just dropped the whole thing. It made things more complicated than they had to be. If you ever do see me use SWIM it is because I am referring to someone who isn't me

i like this. i hadn't heard about the hive before. that's a good enough reason in itself to use swim.

SWIM is the beez kneez