Thanks for your suggestions. The laptop-on-coffee-shop-table scenario does not exist. I never use my own laptop in public places. I have been to the police, but they are not interested in "petty" white collar delinquency unless I can produce concrete proof. I once installed a humble wi-fi cctv at home, but the signals/image went dead after 2 seconds (intercepted?).

Regarding my laptop, I am not sure internet is the key issue (for I have disabled all network-related stuff in the bios, and set the firewall to block all inbound and outbound connections). I even get an IT person to do it for me. I have no network access, but somehow he knows how to get into my "system account", and he always has more privileges than I do. I have re-re-re-installed my computer many times and he can still find a way to get back in

I love reading gothic stories, but it is indeed no fun being a damsel in distress.

A second firewall seems a good idea. Will definitely give it a try. Thanks.   

I need your help rather desperately. A cyberstalker lives in my building, and has been hounding me for months. He had already gained physical access to my office and home computers, so he definitely knows more about the machines’ configs, IDs, IPs than I do. He once changed my home computer’s homepage to something else.

To be on the safe side, I always carry the machine with me, and have decided not to let my home laptop go online. I disabled all network-related functions in the bios (wf, LAN, Bluetooth etc), disabled network adaptors, disabled lots of things in the “services” (network connections, workstation, browers, wf), turned off folder/printer sharing, added new inbound and outbound rules to the firewall (block all). However, he has always managed to hack into the system, and shows no signs of going away. I have already taken the machine back to the factory for reinstallation 2 times in 3 months. Today I reset COM security (no remote access), then my user and admin accounts simply disappeared, and I could not even log in. I used the recovery discs given to me by IBM, but after installing everything, my former settings remain unchanged.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Please keep your computer language simple, for I am a bona fide computer idiot. Thanks a million.