I'm pretty sure his meaning was that an "indicator led" is not the same thing as an "on" light. A usb webcam is on as long as the host is providing power, the

I'm pretty sure his meaning was that an "indicator led" is not the same thing as an "on" light. A usb webcam is on as long as the host is providing power, the led is on the honor system - completely implementation dependent. My $2 dynex lights up when accessed in Windows, but I can easily pull images from it in linux without the led coming on - it is driver controlled. It wouldn't be hard to modify the windows driver, or write your own.