Update:

> > I bet the real difference turns out to be in ssh's Big Number library
> > (in m68k assembly) vs. openssl's m68k assembly. It might be worth
> > looking into. In the meantime, try blowfish instead of 3des.
> 
>  I'm using blowfish right now. Down to 24 seconds :-/
 
 I have deinstalled openssl+openssh and replaced it with ssh1.
 I'm suprised how much faster it is. And no freeze-up either.

>  Maybe that 68040 cache related fix in 1.4.2 wasn't such a great idea
>  after all ...

 I guess the kernel was not at fault then ...

 Would someone with more clues than I running an 680x0 machine like to
 test my binary openss(lh) packages and see if they get the same results?