Secure file access

[neo_philiac]

I am a Newbie when it comes to php. My question is: What is the secure most way to get access to files sitting on the web-server. I do NOT want to open up a SSL VPN session and then authenticate and then sftp to the files. This is the most secure but inconvenient for my purposes. I just want people to login and then just download the files using PHP.

[Twey]

You've already got access to them. Your script is running on the webserver.

[neo_philiac]

Thank you.

So you are saying its already un-secure since its already on the server.
OK. What if it is not sitting on the web-server? What if it is sitting on a remote computer that the web-server has access to ?