In order to influence the essence of increase in the Dag, some validators may implement spamy patterns for the achievement of that goal.
• Vertical pattern. A dishonest validator does not equivocate but produces new units at a fast pace, violating the Unit Creation and Reception Strategy. This type of spam is easy to deal with, as one can compute exactly how many units a validator should have produced by a given moment in time. And if we are receiving more, then we can simply ignore them.
• Horizontal pattern. A dishonest validator or a group of dishonest validators produce numerous equivocations and send them in parallel to different honest validators to make the DAG large. These would by definition be equivocations for which the attacker might be punished (likely by slashing its stake), but they could potentially be disruptive nonetheless.