I believe it's not related. When the shareware model was popular, a lot of the programs made by developers from exUSSR republics were either free or sold at the significantly lowered price to native speakers, so such tests were common. (I've seen Russian folk riddles as tests, for example). The developers were doing this because they were keenly aware of the economic situation in their home countries, and because the software would have been pirated anyway. So there was less incentive for russian speakers to crack it as it was free for them. It was a completely different time as well, nobody was thinking about legal action.