Hiding Applications in Taskbar

The situation at my home can be described as somewhat of an insane witchhunt, my family members claim any of my online based applications lag out their own computers and video games, since my brother's life practically revolves around his Xbox, I am often forced to show and prove to them that I have no programs up that is messing with their connection. Frequently. At every tiny lag or interruption.

You can imagine how difficult this is for me, I cannot have Limewire or skype or chat on Msn or draw on iscribble or play my Last.fm scrobbler because all of these programs have been deemed "Internet hogging programs" And despite me trying to convince them that lag happens, I have been forbidden to do any of these while anyone is home.

So my question is how can I hide these programs? When they are open, they appear in my task bar on the bottom, and that is what my brother comes bursting into my room to check on the most and right clicks the program to see if it asks to open or quit. Either that, or is there a shortcut I could use to end a specific program, while still going about my business, even if it's running in the background?

Thanks in advance for any advice.