Michael Lawrie (born 17 April 1968) is a British computer security and social networking expert known for many things ranging from running MUDs to accidentally being the world's first Cybersquatter.

Lawrie was the first person to send out the AberMUD source code to Vijay Subramaniam thus starting the proliferation of MUDs throughout the world.

Since then he has been heavily involved in IRC both in the UK[6] and worldwide and was central in creating Ircnet when the European servers split away from EFnet.

Michael Lawrie is an ardent supporter of free, public-access systems and servers and is deeply rooted in the history of such services and in the development and opening up of the internet in the UK.

Online he was the head of the Trust and Safety division at OkCupid He is the owner of a huge collection of historical computers,[10] calculators, peripherals, electronic games, and more than a tonne of technical documentation.