Following some discussion on the cobalt-users list, it seems
that this problem affects both the Raq2 and Raq3. It likely
affects other cobalt products, but I haven't confirmed it. I
verified this on my Raq2.

By default, raq-hosted sites expose .htaccess files to the
world.

The configuration files are located in /etc/httpd/conf/.

Fix: Add these lines to your access.conf file and restart
Apache. (This was taken from my debian install :).

Do not allow retrieval of the override files,

a standard security measure.

<Files .htaccess>
order allow,deny
deny from all
</Files>

Annoyingly enough, if you modify this file, Cobalt will
probably tell you your warranty is void.

Interestingly enough, the access.conf file contains the
following:

ignore .files

#<Files "\.*">
#deny from all
#</Files>

(Note it is commented out.)

Paul