 the keys returned may be cached copies of the key held in a provider. Due to this, and unlike in earlier versions of OpenSSL, they should be considered read-only copies of the key. Updates to these keys will not be reflected back in the provider side key. The EVP_PKEY_get1_RSA(), EVP_PKEY_get1_DSA(), EVP_PKEY_get1_DH() and EVP_PKEY_get1_EC_KEY() functions were not changed to have a &quot;const&quot; return type in order that applications can &quot;free&quot; the return value. However applications should st