Yes, it was a design choice made in the early 1970's before public key cryptography was even invented. And that's why it's broken and always will be. This is wh

Yes, it was a design choice made in the early 1970's before public key cryptography was even invented. And that's why it's broken and always will be. This is why email needs to go away completely. But then again, there are still laws on the books saying the only way to securely transmit a document is by fax machine. So even if somebody reinvents a backwards compatible email system tomorrow that solves all the problems, people will be to afraid to use it.