Timothy Patrick Farley (born August 12, 1962) is a computer software engineer, writer and instructor who lives in Atlanta, Georgia. He is an expert in computer security and reverse engineering as well as a skeptic. He was a research fellow of the James Randi Educational Foundation. Tim Farley is the creator of the website What's The Harm?, a resource where stories are documented and categorized about the damage done when people fail to use critical thinking skills. Farley was also instrumental in the apprehension of spammer "David Mabus."
Early life
Farley was born in 1962 and grew up in Edison, New Jersey. He later lived in Valdosta, Georgia and in Atlanta, Georgia.
While in high school and college, Farley was involved in Star Trek fandom and wrote for and edited several fanzines. Most of his writing was non-fiction, examining the science of Star Trek such as the technology shown. In 1985 Farley created the Star Trek Historical Calendar which related science, cartoons and historical facts associated with the series. This venture in college he credits with guiding his later interests in his "This day in skeptic history" project. He was also president of two different Star Trek fan clubs at different times: VISTAS in Valdosta and ASTRA in Atlanta. Later he worked on the staff of several Atlanta-area conventions including Atlanta Fantasy Fair and Dragon Con.
Professional career
His professional career has been in software development, specializing in network communications, computer security and reverse engineering of binary software. He has worked for several Atlanta-area software companies including SemWare, Magee Enterprises, Internet Security Systems, and SPI Dynamics among others.
He has written a number of articles for computer periodicals about programming, computer networking and other topics. He has also written a chapter for a book on computer networking. As an expert in reverse engineering he has been quoted in BYTE Magazine and contributed material to the book Undocumented DOS and other books.
He has participated in computer industry standards committees and has presented at computer industry conferences. He has received three patents for his work in computer security. Farley has also worked as an instructor for commercial computer security training, including reverse engineering and secure application development.
Career as a skeptic
Farley is the creator of the web site What's The Harm? which documents the damage done by mistaken beliefs, misinformation and pseudoscience.
In an interview with Richard Saunders on the Skeptic Zone podcast, Farley discussed how he wanted to try to stay focused on "concrete stories of people that actually got hurt" that he could cite with some kind of "decent documentation". He stated that he wanted to keep the format simple so that anyone could comfortably access the stories, on any browser with no flashy videos. He hopes to expand the site into longer feature stories of some of the more documented or popular stories. Saunders stated that the site "has a wealth of information, if someone asks you "what's the harm?", you can run to this website and see that the harm is... lack of critical thinking."
Farley has written on skeptical topics at his Skeptical Software Tools blog and elsewhere. He also been published in Skeptical Inquirer.
Farley has spoken at local skeptics meetings such as Skeptics in the Pub in Atlanta, Boston, Reno, Nevada, Washington, DC, Manchester, New Hampshire and Madison, Wisconsin. He presented at several SkeptiCamps including Atlanta in 2009, 2010 and 2011 and New York City in 2009.
Speaking at TAM 2012, Farley urged the audience of skeptics to become more involved spreading critical thinking on the Internet, just a few minutes each day. "We need more tools... we need people welding these tools, we need to be the army that is using these tools as weapons against the quacks and the psychics." He cautions skeptics not to get too comfortable thinking that science will always win, because it is right. "We may delude ourselves in thinking it [science] does not need our help." He listed many new software tools that are available on the Internet for free and are relatively easy to use, and he reminded the audience, "Our opponents are doing everything they can to push nonsense on the general public." In his final advice to attendees he stated "Spread out – Pay attention – Stop wasting your online time."
Farley was named one of the Top Skeptics of 2012 by the podcast The Skeptic's Guide to the Universe.