This is interesting because the disk activity LED is covert, not clandestine. There's no need to try to hide the activity; communication is buried in the normal busy activity of the hard disk.
You can exfiltrate data from air-gapped computer by any means that leaks signals. Some are obvious (wi-fi !?!), fun begins when you use means that aren't normally considered.
If I remember correctly (and I'll try to find links afterwards), these were already used:
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[ 64.0 ms ] story [ 363 ms ] threadIf I remember correctly (and I'll try to find links afterwards), these were already used:
1 - Heat from the CPU/GPU (link: https://www.wired.com/2015/03/stealing-data-computers-using-...)
2 - Fan noise/speed (link: https://www.wired.com/2016/06/clever-attack-uses-sound-compu...)
3 - audio from the speaker (link: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/internet-security/1049...)
4 - audio from the HDD activity (link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/08/15/air_gap_breached_by...)
5 - electromagnetic radiation (https://www.wired.com/2015/07/researchers-hack-air-gapped-co...)
And some ways that I didn't see yet, but might be possible:
6 - monitor (by changing part of the screen, the colors, or something like that, creating subtle patterns)
7 - keyboard lights (flickering in high speed, perhaps)
8 - power consumption
edit: added electromagnetic radiation
1. vibration from haptic feedback devices
2. modulation of an optical mouse's light
3. infrared LED plugged into headphone jack
Unintentional sources of leakage:
4. ultrasonic vibrations from power supply components (capacitors) correlated with CPU instructions