Interesting.
I've wondered if the US hasn't done the same thing with Microsoft's Windows software.
The Feds: "Bill, if you put in secret back doors in your software we'll let you off easy on our big lawsuit".
Actually, there is this little item called a GUID (Globally Unique Identifier) used liberally throughout Windows. They are generated on the fly and are supposedly unique to a computer because one of the pieces of data used to create it is the computer's hardware MAC address (i.e., a unique identifier for your ethernet card). Not sure what it uses if there is no ethernet card...
These GUIDs are also passed around between systems, applications, clients, servers, etc., and have (again supposedly) been used to track down a few hackers and virus writers.