640k ought to be enough for any app.

Aye, I'll pass right along with you. I've spent too many decades learning my craft. People pay me to know what I'm doing, and I'm proud of the services I'm able to provide for them.

I've forgotten the name of the company now, but there was a presentation at the Linux conference last year (two years ago, maybe?) in New Orleans that talked about this very topic, and they (or someone else that approached me afterward because I asked a question about it) said that their company was making switching hardware that did stuff in kernel-space, maybe with a proprietary module. This is key here... you can stuff a bunch of NICs in a box and use brtables or whatever and make a switch, but that's going to be dog-slow. ASICs are needed, and at least that one Linux company is making them.

I haven't tried this, but jack is a networked sound protocol... it should be possible to export that to your end of a remote session.

One of my best friends is a financial crimes detective in my city, and yes, he seems to know his stuff.

I would contact my local police force and talk to the financial crimes desk. They may not be able to do anything at this point, but you should establish a paper trail ASAP, which would certainly work in your favor while explaining things to your bank or whatever if the bad guys do manage to hurt you in some manner.

Who is this guy?

If? You're kidding, right?