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.