RE: nope = ridiculous
Are you actually listening to yourself? Your arguments are ridiculous.
"Just because you're supposed to have some kind of warrant, doesn't mean you need one: anyone can attach crocodile clips to a phone line if they have an interest in it.
And that requires PHYSICAL ACCESS to the telephone network. How secure is that email server? Oh yeah, it can be hacked from anywhere around the world by a determined hacker. Or login credentials simply social-engineered right out from under the admin's nose. Or how about the possible dozens of route points in the TRACERT that can be hacked?
The PDF 1.7 standard uses 256-bit AES for encryption, so good luck with that (of course, assuming that the password has been sensibly chosen). Secure, seamlessly e2e encrypted email is easily achievable (other providers are available)
...while you demand every single possible recipient of that PDF'ed data to joint into YOUR encryption choices, share passwords and/or keys or certificates. Plus hop on to either an Adobe Acrobat DC subscription, an online PDF subscription (which would violate the entire point of the security protocols), or a FOSS one - either way, EVERY worker who is responsible for actually reading the materials now needs to be trained in both the encrypt & decrypt sides of the software. And every user, and / or every single system, that may have the data displayed will also have the keys / certificates / passwords.
Yet somehow you think that, in a heathcare situation for example, that having thousands upon thousands of users who need to store, recall or use the system passwords, plus the thousands of systems that themselves need the certificates / passwords, is "secure". A laboratory will have hundreds of client doctors, sending hundreds of thousands of results, and every doctor office will therefore need the shared credentials. Or do you actually suggest that, for every data email sent, that new credentials be accommodated as well??
You send a fax. It gets transmitted to ONE recipient via one direct phone call to a known destination. If the fax needs to be secured...you can put the simple fax machine into a secured location, like a private office. The fax can't be read or copied until you get physical access to that printout.
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You are trying to support your high technology idea that email is better, more secure, than what is equivalent to a phone call. It's the silliest thing I've heard in a while. HIPAA has strict demands on email and apparently there are special compliant providers just to hit the regulatory requirements, all of which will be subscription.
https://www.jotform.com/blog/best-hipaa-compliant-email-providers/
Securing email is NOT easy, you of all people should know that. Yes, it certainly can be done but it is not intrinsic to the format. Fax has a much higher intrinsic level of privacy because you know the destination, no intermediaries are present (discounting the telco's switches and lines, of course).
Biting the hand that feeds IT
