I have a website that is group oriented and allows members to upload files within the groups that they are a part of. I am trying to find a way to make sure that only members of that group can download the files that belong to that group. Members must authenticate and be a member of the group to even view the links to the files, but how do i stop someone from just manually typing in the address to the file name in the address bar without .htaccess?

Is there a way to allow only read permissions to localhost and have the php page send the file to authenticated users?

Thank you for any replies.