Yeah, it's a little confusing. Bitcoin and other cryptocoins use keys and so many people talk about them like everyone understands them.

Did you write down or print out the key/password that was given to you when you first logged in, the one that they say to make sure you keep in a safe place because they can't retrieve it for you? You can always sign in with that one.

As far as I know, the one that told you to write down and keep safe is your private owner key. It's the only one that doesn't appear anywhere on your account for security reasons. It's a master key. The one that shows up under permissions isn't the private one, I don't believe. I'm not sure what people use it for, though.

If you look at your post and active keys, there are buttons that say "show private key" and "login to show." Click on "show private key" and you get another key that's different than the private key. That second key is the one that's best to login for normal use. If you have to do something like move steem or change your profile picture, then you use the private active key, and you'll be asked for that if you're signed in with your posting key. You need to log in with your private owner key to get your private active key, like it says, " login to show." I took those private post and active keys and keep them off the site too.