[s_q_b]

Yes, you can activate the camera without activating the LED. The LED is not directly wired to the power supply.[0]

[0]http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2013/12/18...

Edit in Reply: Not necessarily. It's probably still possible on modern Apple hardware, albeit with a lot of firmware hacking, according to the authors of the paper: http://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/117937/how-to-use-i...

[kaolinite]

Well, not exactly. At one point you were able to, but the flaw has been fixed for over 5 years now. It affected cameras on some Macs sold between 2006 and 2009 I believe.

Here's the paper describing the flaw: https://jscholarship.library.jhu.edu/bitstream/handle/1774.2...

[s_q_b]

Not necessarily. It's probably still possible on modern Apple hardware, albeit with a lot of firmware hacking, according to the authors of the paper: http://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/117937/how-to-use-i....