[cups.general] Question about CUPS printing in OS X

[Taylor, Marc]

Greetings:

I know in OS X when you configure the cups system to print to a Windows
printer with Samba, it stores the username and password as part of the
printer uri in /etc/cups/printers.conf in clear text which is only
readable by root.

My question is, when the cups system interacts with the remote Windows
system to submit the job, is the password exchanged in clear text?
Another question I have, and maybe this is for Apple, has any thought
been given to having this name/password be stored in keychain so that it
isn't so obvious in the file system?

Thanks in advance.

Marc Taylor