>Which raises the concerning question of how much more sleeper maintainers there are.
Given how easy the infiltration is and how extremely hard to detect it is, likely a lot.
For an intelligence operation it is also extremely cheap, you just need a few knowledgeable developers spending some time each week on the project. The upside being a backdoor into a significant portion of infrastructure, the downside being wasted time.
I do not think it is unlikely that in many important open source software projects there are one or two people assign to keep an eye on things. They don't even need to be malicious, just being somewhat trusted contributors is enough. I would be extremely surprised if the NSA hasn't a couple of guys who keep watch on the Linux Kernel.
Given how easy the infiltration is and how extremely hard to detect it is, likely a lot.
For an intelligence operation it is also extremely cheap, you just need a few knowledgeable developers spending some time each week on the project. The upside being a backdoor into a significant portion of infrastructure, the downside being wasted time.
I do not think it is unlikely that in many important open source software projects there are one or two people assign to keep an eye on things. They don't even need to be malicious, just being somewhat trusted contributors is enough. I would be extremely surprised if the NSA hasn't a couple of guys who keep watch on the Linux Kernel.