There's some interesting answers to this question on security.stackexchange http://security.stackexchange.com/questions/6758/can-webcams-be-turned-on-without-th

There's some interesting answers to this question on security.stackexchange http://security.stackexchange.com/questions/6758/can-webcams-be-turned-on-without-the-indicator-light http://security.stackexchange.com/questions/6758/can-webcams... . Short answer is that it looks to be possible with some webcams but not others, depending on the design.