Randal L. Schwartz

He gained international fame when the state of Oregon, at the behest of Intel, arrested him on felony grounds for computer security crimes. Schwartz has stated that his actions, as a consultant of Intel, were to show that management employees of Intel were selecting passwords that could be easily guessed by individuals who then could compromise computer security. He was convicted of three felonies in July, 1995, and sentenced on September 11, 1995, to several years probation, a fine of $68,000, and about $170,000 inlegal bills.

He coauthored several important books on Perl -- Programming Perl (http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/pperl3/), Learning Perl (http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/lperl3/), Learning Perl for Win32 Systems, and Effective Perl Programming -- as well as writing regular columns about Perl for several computer magazines. He is a founding board member of the Perl Mongers (perl.org), the worldwide Perl grassroots advocacy organization. Since 1985, Randal has owned and operated Stonehenge Consulting Services, Inc.

Randal is also a talented karaoke singer; one of his favorites is his cover of Kermit the Frog's song Rainbow Connection. He is also known for his offbeat sense of humor.

External links

• Origial text from his bio at one of his many columns (http://www.stonehenge.com/merlyn/columns)
• Randal's web page (http://www.stonehenge.com/merlyn/)
• State of Oregon vs. Randal Schwartz (http://www.lightlink.com/spacenka/fors/)