---
title: "Roger Schell"
type: "entity"
entity_kind: "person"
status: "hub"
canonical_name: "Roger Schell"
aliases: ["Roger R. Schell"]
first_seen: "2026-10-29T00:00:00.000Z"
writer_model: "claude-sonnet-5"
connects_to: ["Multics","computer security","Paul Karger","Ken Thompson","Matthew effect"]
seek_code_commit: "d40ee39"
---


MIT Multics graduate student in the late 1960s/early 1970s who, per Tom Van
Vleck's first-person history, "turned out" to be a serving US Air Force major
sent to MIT for an advanced degree. He went on to co-author, with Paul
Karger, the 1974 Air Force-sponsored *Multics Security Evaluation:
Vulnerability Analysis* (ESD-TR-74-193) — the report that first documented
the compiler trap-door mechanism [[entity-ken-thompson|Ken Thompson]]
popularized a decade later in "Reflections on Trusting Trust."

Matters to this vault as the more foundational of the report's two authors:
his connection to Multics predates Karger's co-authorship by way of his own
MIT graduate work, which is separate standing beyond the one joint paper
(per the vault's co-authorship-is-a-mention ruling). See
[[claim-thompson-1984-credits-karger-schell-1974-matthew-effect]] for the
citation-correction history, and
[[claim-shared-multics-environment-predates-karger-schell-1974-report-not-credit-channel]]
for why his earlier MIT period does not itself explain how the 1974 report
reached Thompson. Paul Karger remains a mention only, per the 2026-10-01
co-authorship ruling.

## References
- [[claim-thompson-1984-credits-karger-schell-1974-matthew-effect]]
- [[claim-shared-multics-environment-predates-karger-schell-1974-report-not-credit-channel]]
- Captures: 2026-10-29-ken-thompsons-1984-reflections-on-trusting-trust-credits