this is caused by xdm and sshd _not_ calling setlogin(2).

the R6 patch i have for NetBSD/sparc includes a fix for this, but,
i believe that the XFree86 folks have something more generic.

funny, sshd has this:

#ifdef HAVE_SETLOGIN
  /* Set login name in the kernel.  Warning: setsid() must be called before
     this. */
  if (setlogin(pw->pw_name) < 0)
    error("setlogin failed: %.100s", strerror(errno));
#endif /* HAVE_SETLOGIN */

and HAVE_SETLOGIN is defined as 1.

strange...