Replies

I do know that the Apache server at rfny.us checks to see that the request for the pictures comes from freerepublic.com and forbids everybody else - that's why I couldn't bring them up directly from my computer. I have no problem with that.

But their server is looking for something else, too. I have my Zone Alarm set to "stealth mode - Your computer is hidden and protected from hackers. Sharing is not allowed."

That feature must be disabled for me to view the pictures.

I wonder why the website (www.rfny.us) demands that it be able to "see inside" my computer before it will let me view the photos.

(The owner of the rfny.us website is one "Hank Hayes", who, coincidentally, looks a lot like Gigantor. See www.hankhayes.com.)

Can anybody help explain this?

No ones talking....This is one of the first times I've been unable to view pics....everyone that just had to view those pics disabled their firewall along with Norton. Stupid, in my books.

I've got nothing to hide, however, I'm also not interested in someone putting spy programs in my computer to watch everything I do on the net. In my books, that'd be the bottom line of disabling a firewall along with Norton.

Can anybody help explain this

Firewalls can do strange things. Sometimes I experience what you describe but I use Norton. If I really feel it necessary to view the image, I'll quickly disable the firewall, download the page and re-enable the firewall.

"Just talking to myself here, but since the rfny.us server only allows requests from FR, one would think that ALL such requests would be honored."

Perhaps your statement explains the mystery, IF it is accurate - how do you know that the server ONLY ACCEPTS requests from FreeRepublic. If that IS correct, then this is the answer:

I played around with my Norton Internet Security Settings and got the following results:

When NIS was disabled, with NAV (anti-virus) and ZoneAlarm (another firewall) and Ad Watch (part of retail version of Ad Aware) all still enabled - pictures came through OK.
With all the above enabled - pictures blocked.
With all the above enabled, but Privacy control (in NIS) turned off - pictures came through OK.
The only item in Privacy control that I usually have configured to be turned off is in the Advanced section where I usually have it set to "BLOCK visited web site info". So I set it to allow that and turned Privacy control back on & voila - pictures came through OK.
CONCLUSION - since you say that the server will only accept requests from the FreeRepublic website - then it follows that the server must verify that the request is from the FR website and must check to see if that's the site you are visiting. If it can't verify that, then it must block the pics.

If you have a different theory - explain, please.