Who is Joseph Coffland and why is he in my Login Items?

I had the same name pop up in my startup items. Looked him up on Goggle and found that he is the lead programmer for Folding at Home, the distributed computing app. If you have that app installed his name is apparently used instead of the program's actual name.

According to his website (http://joe.coffland.com/), Joseph Coffland is a developer for the folding@home initiative, which is a background process (see https://foldingathome.org/start-folding/?lng=en). So, if you have F@H installed on your computer, that's probably why he is in your login items.

This a copy of the answer to this question from the FoldingForum for Folding@home

Joe Coffland is the main software developer hired by PG for the Folding@home client and also the Assignment and Work server software. A search of this forum would show his posts announcing new public betas and other related support posts. You can also search the Folding web site, he has been mentioned there a number of times.

https://foldingforum.org/viewtopic.php?f=61&t=29745

He's the CEO of Cauldron Development, a software development company. You must has one of his apps installed. Check the link to see if you recognize one.

Have you ever installed Folding@home? if so try uninstalling that.

https://foldingathome.org/support/faq/installation-guides/mac/uninstall/?lng=en-GB

He's the lead developer for Folding@Home. You probably installed that.

Apple posts information on installed items based on how folks have registered the developer ID used to sign the app.

Organizations with developer IDs that sign apps are listed by organization name, while individual developers with developer IDs are listed by their individual names. You have previously loaded an app signed by an individual developer.

AFAIK Apple has not (yet?) provided an installed app inventory tool; a way to easily acquire this list, or to acquire the relationship between developers and which apps. (There is reportedly a third-party working on an inventory tool here, but I don’t know the status or schedule of that.)

If you would like this case and related messages better documented (and it is confusing), I would suggest logging feedback with Apple.

Here is how to log: Product Feedback - Apple

I have it too so I searched the name, and it appears he is a developer for Folding@home, which makes sense since I've had that software downloaded before.

Perhaps if the user inventories All Applications installed and used on the computer, major task manually or really have a quicker look at >>

Etrecheck directly from the Developer.

This is a Diagnostic Tool that makes no changes to the computer.

It makes a coherent and readable inventory of both the Hardware and Software used on the computer 

The application is free or paid from added features. 

The Report will Not Reveal Any Personal Information.

At that point it is Optional to Post the Full Report or just go through it yourself.

The " more eyes on the prize " the faster this mystery may be resolved ?

No one here could possibly know. Try searching with Google or Bing. If this appears in your Login Items it is associated with an app that you downloaded and installed. You could also download and install the free version of Malwarebytes, a trusted and highly recommended malware detector used by many here.

https://www.malwarebytes.com/

PaulHibbert wrote:

Who is Joseph Coffland and why is he in my Login Items?

It sounds like a used Mac previous to your purchase and was not prepared correctly for re-sale

What to do before you sell, give away, or trade in your Mac

However your post begs more questions than answers...

This is probably the Name of a Developer of some application installed and used on this computer

Refer to possible insights in below link

https://github.com/jcoffland

How daft is it that you can't delete your own posts when you discover that someone has already answered the question!