McAfee wrote a program that used the Sqlite library for database storage.
When going about its data storage business for McAfee’s program, the Sqlite library was storing files in C:\temp with prefixes like sqlite_3726371.
Users see that and get angry, and bug the Sqlite developers.
Now probably when initialising the Sqlite library McAfee could have given it the location of a directory to keep it’s temp files. Then they could have been tucked away somewhere along with the rest of the McAfee code base and be more easily recognised as belonging to them, but they didn’t.
So because of a bit of careless programming on McAfee’s part, Sqlite developers were getting the heat because the files were easily recognisable as belonging to them.
Because the Sqlite developers don’t have control of what McAfee was doing, the most expedient way to solve the problem was to obfuscate the name a bit.