Devastating misleading article
Late 90's? OpenSSH was released December 1, 1999, but the first real release featuring substantial OpenSSH-project written code, including support for protocol version 2 was released June 15, 2000. Also, the theoretical vulnerability you mentioned was protocol-based, not limited to OpenSSH. And what is the non sequitur about OpenSSL doing there? You missed some other completely unrelated look-alikes, such as OpenSS and OpenSSO.
Axe to grind or lazy?