Some webcams have an LED next to it which notifies the user it's working.
Hackers are supposed to be able to disable this LED in order to spy their victims without their knowledge, but how can you disable a component, in this case a diode, without making the rest of the circuit unusable?
If an LED is connected in series to the camera sensor, I guess damaging the diode would result in a non-voltage passing component, making the whole webcam circuit unusable.
I'm talking about domestic PC webcams, like the ones you can find in a laptop, for example. I was also thinking in a series connected LED to the webcam in my ignorance of how these systems work.
What I want to know is the way hackers can force a misbehavior of your LED to mislead you and make you think you're not being recorded.
Note that I'm asking this question from the electronic point of view, I'm interested in security, but I'm not trying to get a how-to or something similar.