openssh-3.5p1-107 tunneling problems

good day all ... i upgraded to the openssh-3.5p1-107 rpms over the weekend and now i've a problem with tunneling. i use an ssh tunnel to make irc connections, now when i make an irc connection over the tunnel i connect as user root instead of as the user i make the tunnel with: ssh 6669:irc.freenode.net:6667 michael@host.domain.org then i run the irc client on the localhost and connect as usual, however, whois looks like this: [irc_nick] (root@ip.host.domain.org) : My Full Name both the localhost and the remote host are at openssh-3.5p1-107 and this somewhat bad behavior began after the upgrade. the sshd_config is the stock that came with the rpm. am i missing something? -- michael