Identification String spam from known hosts

Hello,

Web searches on this issue are polluted by logs of hacking attempts and suchlike; can't find any simple technical explanation of the condition that's actually triggering it, though.

Host's logs are filled with "Did not receive identification string from x.x.x.x" messages when i am connected to the host *from* x.x.x.x at a rate of one every 2-3 minutes. What is the cause of sshd's ire?

x.x.x.x which i am connecting from is a Gentoo system, using ebuild openssh-4.2_p1-r1.
The host is Ubuntu using openssh-server 1:4.1p1-7ubuntu4.

Across the network, i have noticed that a few Debian systems consistently complain in this manner about Gentoo systems that connect to them. I am assuming the ssh client on gentoo is (or isn't...) sending something to the remote host that it doesn't like, but i'm not sure where to start looking, even...

--
Rob Munsch
Solutions For Progress IT

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