Randal L. Schwartz

Randal L. Schwartz (born November 22, 1961), also known as merlyn, is an American author, system administrator and programming consultant. He has written several books on the Perl programming language, and plays a promotional role within the Perl community. He is a co-host of FLOSS Weekly. In 1995, after he had been employed by Intel, he cracked a number of passwords on the company's systems. He was convicted of hacking, sentenced to five years probation, and fined. The conviction was expunged in 2007.