This was done for spam prevention of  course and it is up to the LISTSERV
administrator to decide who is or is not authorized. The feature can even
be turned  off, but you're  probably right  in assuming that  most people
will leave  it on and not  authorize anyone :-) A  typical large academic
site will have list owners who are  known to the administrator and can be
trusted, and  then any number of  list owners who are  completely unknown
and may or may  not be trustworthy. You can authorize  the ones you know,
but this  is a slippery slope  and the simplest solution  is to authorize
none.

For occasional use  (as you described), you could use  another method, or
maybe  install a  copy  of LISTSERV  Free  Edition on  your  PC. You  can
configure it  to accept  DISTRIBUTE jobs  from you, and  you then  need a
willing SMTP  host (the only advantage  is that you don't  need to change
the scripts  that prepare the job  or worry about what  the messages will
look like).

  Eric