OK. Let's go over some basic crypto information here.
A key, ultimately, is a piece of encoded information. Sort of like a password. Get the information and you can open the safe and get the goodies.
This is true when the "goodies" are data and the "safe" is a database, or a password-protected laptop. I'm sure that people at security-expert-type companies, just like the rest of us, are told to keep their passwords secret. I bet they have to change them every so often, too, because a lot of us (even though we KNOW better) are lazy, and have a habit of using the same password for everything, or else our password is "password" or "1234abcd."
Certainly it's against the rules for employees at, say, Diebold, to post the passwords to their laptops on the Internet. Oh, I can imagine it. "I keep forgetting my password. Where can I put it so I'll always be able to look it up? Oh, I know, I'll post it on my blog!"
It would be especially brilliant if a security company, say, Diebold, in order to advertise how good they are at coming up with passwords that nobody would ever be able to guess, were to post those actual, real, working passwords on its own website. "You just try to hack into our database by guessing our employees' birthdates in order. We here at (say) Diebold only use REALLY TOUGH passwords. Even our CEO uses A5F%Cq,T2 as the password on his personal laptop! You'll never get THAT one in a million years!"
Of course, some people forget that "key" also applies to pocket-sized metal objects that are inserted into the metal barrels of other objects called "locks" which enables the barrel to be rotated and thus to move a latch, thus opening a box with real, stealable goodies inside.
Even officials at a high-tech security-expert corporation, say, Diebold, might forget that this kind of "key," the old-fashioned kind, is also a kind of encoded information. This information is encoded in the shape of the key.
Are you with me so far?
Don't post a photograph of a key on your website.
That's for you, Diebold.
Thank you.
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