You're right, if he did so, it must have been in private; I searched for a while to find a message on a public mailing list about it, and could not, so resorted

You're right, if he did so, it must have been in private; I searched for a while to find a message on a public mailing list about it, and could not, so resorted to linking to that later message. Regardless, I'm glad that paranoia did eventually prevail, despite Linus's original strong objections.