This is not currently causing build failures because things are working fine on npm 3 (node 6), and the projects already switched to npm 6 (node 10) are only those not affected by this bug.
But, in trying out node10 on a number of projects, some of them consistently fail in this way. Including:
* node-rdkafka-statsd ([change](https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/#/c/node-rdkafka-statsd/+/324277/); [build](https://integration.wikimedia.org/ci/job/generic-node10-docker/34/console))
* labs/tools/heritage ([change](https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/#/c/labs/tools/heritage/+/487801/); [build](https://integration.wikimedia.org/ci/job/generic-node10-docker/31/console))
* pywikibot/i18n ([change](https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/#/c/pywikibot/i18n/+/487578/))
```counterexample
+ rm -rf node_modules
+ npm install --no-progress
npm ERR! code Z_DATA_ERROR
npm ERR! errno -3
npm ERR! invalid distance too far back
```