&gt; Is it private when you&#x27;re screaming it on the street corner for everyone to hear?<p>Yes, it is, if the screaming is between you and another person and not addressed at the public.<p>&gt; If we&#x27;re talking about vocal utterances, the law says &quot;no&quot;<p>Actually the law says &quot;yes&quot;. At least in all the countries in which secrecy of telecommunications laws are in place. The general outline has been laid out by the ITU and the paraphrased rule is, that it is strictly forbidden to listen to communications to which one is not the intended communications partner and the signal is not addressed at the public. It&#x27;s debateable if a SSID beacon is a public broadcast or not. But at least from most user&#x27;s point of view their intention is not broadcasting to the general public if they set up an encrypted 802.11 access point.