Security warning about Samsung Linux printer drivers

[easuter]

This post popped up (apparently a while ago already) on linuxfr.org, pointing out the way that the Samsung Unified Linux printer drivers get installed when using the installer Samsung provides:

http://linuxfr.org/forums/15/22562.html

You can run that though the Google translator if you want to try to read everything, but very basically it explains that the driver installer changes permissions to several apps like XSane and the OpenOffice.org binaries, making them run with root privilages no matter which user runs these apps (and it also amazingly changes permissions to all files in /etc...)

This is extremely dangerous, and it is recommended you do not use Samsung's installer to install the drivers.

Instead, follow this howto to install them in a safer manner, if you still feel like these sloppy drivers deserve you time and effort:

http://jacobo.tarrio.org/Samsung_SCX-4200_on_Debian

[flip city]

This post is a bit dated and samsung has corrected the issues with the older driver,,,,
"Samsung fixed this problems with versions 3.xx of the drivers, so it is strongly recommended that you install one of those versions instead of versions 2.xx. " quote taken from above posted link. Good to be cautious though. Still digging my scx 4500.

Also, here's a link to the page for the 3.00.65 Linux driver file : http://www.samsung.com/us/support/downloads/SCX-4500#tab2

[pierce.jason]

You'd probably have better luck starting a new thread, and specifying in the title the type of printer you have. This kind of issue is most likely very driver-dependent. I've never seen that on my HP printer.