old iptables, insmod commands

[Peter Folk]

Well I found my problem---everything was, in fact, working fine.  Which
prompts a new question: why can I successfully ping eth1 in the following
diagram:

  me---------eth0[machine]eth1-----other network

when I have no rules in the FORWARD table and its policy is DROP?  It
is successfully dropping the packets, because I can't ping or trace-
route beyond it, but why can I get to that interface at all?

Pete
p.s. Successfully upgraded to kernel 2.3.99pre3-6, iptables 1.0.0 alpha.