Flash Plugin does not allow you to control the use of the webcam and microphone in Ubuntu 12.04 LTS. It used to allow this earlier. It becomes a bit scary when you visit any site with embedded flash objects, and you find that your webcam on the laptop goes on suddenly without any reason. Earlier, flash used to allow the user to control if the web cam or the microphone could be turned off, but not anymore.
To overcome this, it is preferable to install Gnash rather than use the flash plugin from Adobe since Adobe will not provide upgrades to Flash. Gnash http://getgnash.org/packages/ is a better option and hopefully, lightspark http://lightspark.github.com/ will provide another choice when it matures.
In Ubuntu, you can install gnash from the software repository as follows:
Open up a terminal window
$ sudo apt-get install gnash browser-plugin-gnash gnash-common mozilla-plugin-gnash <enter>
You can also do this on your Fedora 17 desktop. Search for gnash in the package manager.
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