Thanks...
How to apply the explanation wasn't total clear to me since I was originally try to hack up the DES.pm to find where the data was being passed incorrectly before I found this thread.
Attached is a clear example:
use utf8;
my $username = $connection->{'username'};
my $password = $connection->{'password'};
my $ip = $connection->{'ip'};
chomp( $username , $password , $ip );
utf8::downgrade($username);
utf8::downgrade($password);
my $ssh = Net::SSH::Perl->new($ip ,
port => 'ssh'
);
$ssh->login($username, $password);
my($out, $err) = $ssh->cmd($cmd || "ls -l");
print $out;