Can hackers see data going to and from my computer?

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MY EX EMPLOYER HAS HACKED INTO MY HOME COMPUTER AND PRINTED OFF EMAILS TO HIS OFFICE.
HOW CAN HE GET AWAY WITH THIS, IS THIS NOT AGAINST THE LAW?
THAT IS OPENING SOMEONE'S MAIL AS HE DID ME.
THIS IS TERRIBLE ON HIS PART, HE IS A ROTTEN PERSON TO DO THIS, I WOULD NEVER DO THAT, HAS HE NOTHING BETTER TO DO? WE GOT INTO A FIGHT OVER IT AN I LOST MY JOB. HE PRINTED SOMETHING OFF MY COMOPUTER ON A SUNDAY, WHEN I DO NOT EVEN WORK.
HE STOLE MY PASSWORD AND MONITORED ME FROM HIS OFFICE IS WHAT HE TOLD ME.

If my computer is 'offline' but the phone line is still connected, is it possible for a hacker to dial 'into' my system?

Not typically, no. You would have to have installed software that would auto-answer the phone. But in general, the answer's no.

If you were on a LAN with your boss i could see this or on a wifi connect.
If your on a basic 56k dial up i'd say its a trojan or some kind of remote monitoring software.
If i were in your shoes (I wouldnt have been hired by the guy outta fear) Iwould pop in a Knoppix Live CD and go to town on his network and screw with his mind.
Bosses are snoopy and it's not right if he put some software on your HD to peek on you.

My business requires the emailing of some sinsitive information on a regular basis. I have spoken with my boss and co-workers about all of us using an encripted email system such as mailvault.com but no one seems to think there is a sigificant threat or danger out there to require these extra steps in security. Can you offer any data to help me to convice them that this IS a good idea?

Try this article: http://ask-leo.com/just_how_secure_is_email_anyway.html

I have been hacked and have optimum online dsl service. Is it possible for hackers to retrieve information from my computer even though I shut down?

If your computer is off, then no, it cannot be hacked into.

I am an expert pc user and spend 60 hours a week on my machine and have never had this happen... I turned off my firewall to access a program on my old pc on the home network. I imported a file from c:folder\subfolder. I left the firewall off and left my machine for 7 hours. When I came back all files had disappeared from the folder and were not in the recycle bin. I am the admin account and logged off before I walked away but left the pc running with the firewall off. Did someone hack in and delete all my images. How can I trace down the files or evidence that I was hacked. Lucky for me what's important is always transferred to cd or dvd and it was backed up.

Recent: While playing AOE on MSN zone, A hacker who didn't want to lose was able to terminate my DSL connection? How? and what can I do to prevent this or track it?

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