Ok guys, I think I've got it fixed although I'm not sure what was done. But I will try to give some hints here so at least the next person with this problem may have some idea where to look. I had someone who knows way more than me take a look at this issue. He fixed it by changing some firewall settings. If I understand it correctly, and I probably do not, the madwifi drivers mask or change the WLAN card designation from eth0 to ath0. The firewall rules were being applied to allow access from certain ports and only from eth0. Nothing else was allowed in including anything coming from ath0. He somehow changed the designation to apply the firewall rules to ath0 and viola. At least that's my understanding of the workaround. Now it 's working. Is it correct? I don't know. But at least now I get to play. Thanks again for all of your help. I hope this helps someone else in the future.
