The remote host is missing an update to ppxp announced via advisory DSA 725-1.

https://secure1.securityspace.com/smysecure/catid.html?in=DSA%20725-1

Jens Steube discovered that ppxp, yet another PPP program, does not release root privileges when opening potentially user supplied log files. This can be tricked into opening a root shell. For the stable distribution (woody) this problem has been fixed in version 0.2001080415-6woody1. For the unstable distribution (sid) this problem has been fixed in version 0.2001080415-11. We recommend that you upgrade your ppxp package.