Stealth Internet Usage

The best option is probably to just ask your flatmate to disable the log feature of the router--it is easy to do. If you really want to be paranoid and attempt to obfuscate your traffic a bit, look into tor and i2p. But if you live in the same flat as the surveilling appliance, why not just disable the surveillance program.

Short answer: You have nothing to worry about, unless you're trying to hide the presence of other/more computers on your network.

Long answer:

http://download.mcafee.com/products/webhelp/4/2057/GUID-928C2A26-9534-4B08-8266-00C8421E0DCD.html

Looks like it just shows a map of your local network (which any computer connected to a network can do by analyzing ARP packets and packet TTLs) and allows your roommate to administer the McAfee installations on other computers (which I assume you don't have installed on yours).

So not much to worry about. Your roomate cannot determine how much bandwidth you're using if you're on a switched network (as his computer will never receive any traffic going to/from your computer), nor can he see what websites you're going to. Even if you WEREN'T on a switched network, he'd have to have his network card in promiscuous mode to measure your bandwidth use, which means his network card could only listen not really do anything else useful.

Now, if he controls your router, that's another story (as all traffic has to go through the router).

The more you know.... 😉

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Address_Resolution_Protocol
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_to_live
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_switch
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Promiscuous_mode

From what you're describing, it's highly unlikely your roommate will know anything beyond the fact that your computer is connected and its local IP address. He shouldn't be able to log what sites your visiting unless he's rigged the network somehow so that his computer is assigning you that IP and all traffic is routed through his machine.

If you're still worried, you could also check and see if your university has an IPSec or Cisco VPN that you could log into. If they do, you could connect to that and assuming your roommate has control of the router and can log your traffic, he would only see constant hits to the VPN server.

If there's no VPN server, most universities at the very least have a UNIX shell server that they let their students log into. Which case, you could roll your own VPN using an SSH tunnel and apps like this one.

Also, at the risk of making you even more paranoid, you should check your University's IT department web pages and see if they list their policies regarding monitoring. Some aggressively log traffic just like your roommate is claiming too, while others (typically larger institutions) don't know and don't want to know...