point to point address assignment of ppp0
 

Hi Linux newbie here.
I am running RH 7.3 and I connect to the internet via aDSL connection on my eth0 card via a ppp connection. I get my IP address dynamically assigned by my provider. I am runnign the firewall from the HOW-To Masquarade

I have notced that everytime i establish a new connection i see this when
I do ifconfig for my ppp0 interface

ppp0 Link encap:Point-to-Point Protocol
inet addr:66.167.85.35 P-t-P:172.31.255.252 Mask:255.255.255.255
UP POINTOPOINT RUNNING NOARP MULTICAST MTU:1492 Metric:1
RX packets:33 errors:45 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:35 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:3
RX bytes:14216 (13.8 Kb) TX bytes:4167 (4.0 Kb)

the P-t-P address is an internal address and it never changes. I use to see all sorts of address there. I have also seen some odd network traffic and not sure its because of my 2 windows machines (backwep update agents..) or I might have been hacked or have some linux worm. I am NOT running a webserver, at least not knowingly...

if I do route i also see this address pop up as default instead of some long name like user-blahlblah.mindspring etc...

Any thougths?
Thanks

Andy