Randall Lawrence Waterhouse is a fictional character from Neal Stephenson's novel, Cryptonomicon. An astronomer by education, his real drive in life is computers, networking, and all around information technology not limited to the mere dirty work. He also has working knowledge of encryption, and a strong genetically inherited grasp of advanced mathematics. He is also a skilled hacker (programmer).

While Randy suffers from the inability to ditch his long-term live-in girlfriend of nearly a decade, he is still drawn away from this life by his friend Avi, who summons him up to form another business foray, which the two have a history of doing together anyway. For most of the book, he spends his days in Manila, a large city located in the Philippines, and the fictional island sultanate of Kinakuta, and aboard boats with Douglas MacArthur Shaftoe and his daughter America Shaftoe, whom he lusts after.

Randy has a strong affinity towards UNIX and UNIX-like systems, running Finux, a fictional operating system with a nearly identical description to Linux, right down to its nation of origin (Finland) and it's community-based development and open-source nature.

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