diff -ur twiki-20030201.orig/lib/TWiki/Access.pm twiki-20030201/lib/TWiki/Access.pm
--- twiki-20030201.orig/lib/TWiki/Access.pm	2004-11-16 17:08:01.000000000 -0500
+++ twiki-20030201/lib/TWiki/Access.pm	2004-11-16 17:29:14.000000000 -0500
@@ -109,6 +109,10 @@
                     @denyList = @tmpList;
                 } else {
                     @allowList = @tmpList;
+		    if ($2 =~ /\S/ && !@allowList) {
+		    	##&TWiki::writeDebug( "  return 0, empty ALLOWTOPIC" );
+			return 0;
+		    }
                 }
             }
         }
@@ -138,6 +142,10 @@
                       prvGetUserList( $tmpVal );
         ##my $tmp = join( ', ', @allowList );
         ##&TWiki::writeDebug( "  Prefs ALLOWWEB$theAccessType: {$tmp}" );
+	if ($tmpVal && $tmpVal =~ /\S/ && !@allowList) {
+	    ##&TWiki::writeDebug( " return 0, empty ALLOWWEB" );
+	    return 0;
+	}
     }
 
     # access permission logic