Overengineering usually refers to something that's not simple or elegant or a solution which represents more effort than the problem calls for. None of those factors seem to apply here.
The sliding cover is simpler and more secure.
It's not a software hackable thing because of the physical orientation of the LED. This is where the current designs get it wrong by making things too complicated (though they have their reasons).
edit: I'd note that these features we're talking about aren't mutually exclusive
I would be way easier to convince that a piece of plastic is harder to hack than a LED. For instance, there would be no embedded microcontroller to subvert.
Also, USB is a bus, you can't splice an LED into the power line of the USB going to a camera and conclude that when the LED is lit, the camera is recording. There's a lot of other traffic that could be happening beween the host and the device, that doesn't mean the camera is performing any recording. The reverse would of course be true, though (no light = no recording).
Looking at my current macbook lid, I don't how how that would physically fit. The camera would need to be recessed further into the lid to accomodate for the door.
> I would be way easier to convince that a piece of plastic is harder to hack than a LED. For instance, there would be no embedded microcontroller to subvert.
I'm inclined to believe that a mechanical sliding door would have a higher failure rate than an LED.
Absolutely not. The moving parts vs. no moving parts divide is pretty huge, and an LED is not a complicated thing.
> I would be way easier to convince that a piece of plastic is harder to hack than a LED. For instance, there would be no embedded microcontroller to subvert.
Having the LED in parallel on the power line is impossible to subvert without a soldering iron. I don't know why people are having trouble understanding this bit.
Perhaps to do this properly with a USB camera you'd need to give the camera its own USB controller. My god, who cares? The USB thing was just an example. The point is that you can wire in an LED such that when the camera has power, the LED has power.
> that doesn't mean the camera is performing any recording
The light today doesn't signify "recording," it just signifies that the camera is on.