I wasn't trying to insult you with my last post so sorry if that's how it came off. I'm just suggesting that even when you think you're connection should be doing nothing, there are things going on.
You could get a Packet Sniffer and see this. You can get heaps of them. They are everywhere. If you go to download.com and search for one you'll get tons of hits.
They are not all good, they are not all easy to use and the info is going to be misleading because you might see traffic from your ISP making sure you're still alive, or your mail client checking for mail, or MSN messenger checking for mail, or any number of microsoft or real player, or anybody elses, Auto Update programs, or any number of things that might be going on that may or may not be hacking.
If you want to go through a lot of work get a packet sniffer and chase down all the IPs.
You're best bet is a firewall. If Zone Alarm is killing your connection try another one. It's a lot easier than tracking down hackers. There are entire foundations dedicated to trying to figure out the best way to track down hackers. Go to
and read their whitepapers. If they make sense to you then you're equipped to track down a hacker. If they dont...just fuss with the firewall until you get it to work.
You might also want to make sure you have the latest version of every driver and piece of software you're running. Not because the newest software is "hack proof" but the newer software will at least require different hacks and at least somebody wont be able to conquer your machine with a hack that came out in 1972.
Best of luck.