The backdoor has national, international, and local security implications. The user name is "factory" and the password is based on the unit's MAC address. That pretty strongly indicates it was intended for factory initialization and recovery of mis-configured devices, not a backdoor in the name of "national security".

"Factory" user/password combinations have long been a problem - often not revealed to the purchaser of the equipment[1][2]. This one is especially bad because it cannot be disabled even if the user knows about it.

[1] http://all.net/CID/Attack/papers/BadDefaults.html

[2] Oracle is notorious for default users/passwords http://www.petefinnigan.com/default/default_password_list.ht...

Indeed. Epic. This is the NarusInsight (nee Carnivore) of the present and future.