I think it is just chain of trust. Many used Microslop as the trust authority (may be due to convenience? I have no idea). Debian has a nice page on Secure boot and how it works.

Aww… My dog is also named Nora.

As far as I knows, Linus dropped that asshole founder mode, and moved on. There was a write up by him, how the linux conference and his holiday plans got overlapped, which forced him to rethink a lot about himself. Great person.