Randal L. Schwartz (born November 22, 1961), also known as merlyn, is an American author, system administrator and programming consultant.

In 1995, while working as a consultant for Intel, he cracked a number of passwords on the company's systems.

[2] Schwartz is a member of the F/OSS community, and has been named a "Perl Expert" and interviewed by numerous outlets—to discuss his views on Perl, Ruby, Smalltalk and other topics—including Dr. Dobb's,[3] Paul dot Com Security TV,[4] The Command Line,[5] PerlCast,[6] FLOSS Weekly,[7] ONLamp.com,[8] and InfoQ.

In the process of performing penetration testing, he cracked a number of passwords on Intel's systems.

[14][15] Schwartz was originally convicted on three felony counts, with one reduced to a misdemeanor, but on February 1, 2007, his arrest and conviction records were sealed through an official expungement, and he is legally no longer a felon.