"When you set your SmugMug gallery to 'private', this is exactly what you're doing - making the gallery and photos difficult, but not impossible, to find."
Yes, clearly not all users understood "private" the way smugmug uses it. I think Don is feeling a little defensive now, but tomorrow he'll probably go ahead and change "private" to "unlisted".
I agree it is the term 'private' that is wrong here, not necessarily the behavior (though it obviously could be more secure.)