Are you going to San Francisco? (And can I have some money?)

..because I've been invited to a major antispyware conference which will bring together some of the biggest players in the antispyware field. Vendors, experts, government officials (from where, I don't know - maybe Latvia has an antispyware brigade!) and possibly even some of the creators of the Adware itself.

There'll be whiteboards and free sandwiches and stuff.

Unfortunately, its to be held at the San Francisco CNET offices on the 3rd of May. That's great, except I live in England. Why don't people hold these things in Manchester or somewhere?

Anyway, long story short, as an independent researcher I don't have the funds to get there on such short notice (unlike anyone attending whose companies are footing the bills, the lucky blighters!) so I'm going to do what any other noble individual would do at this point - beg.

Yes, I'm not proud. If you're some kind of big business guy who is willing to sponsor me to go, or if you're a magazine / online publication etc who is willing to pay for me to go in return for a hands-on scoop of the proceedings (you may even want to tag along!), then email me at paperghost@vitalsecurity.org

In return, I'll walk your dog and paint your house. I've got an art degree and everything. I'll even wear a branded T-shirt and randomly yell out "(INSERT COMPANY NAME HERE) RULES!!!" every so often.

On a more serious note, in return for this, I'm sure there's something beneficial I can do for the sponsor, depending on what you're looking for.

I had thought about adding my Paypal donate link, but it's unlikely that the sum total would be reached by individual donations. So I'd do the right thing and refund it all back, but I'm assuming Paypal would still want their cut. I don't want a situation where I'm getting charged for hundreds of refunds - that would be (to coin a phrase) rather scary.

But thank you to everyone so far who has said they would make a donation - it's greatly appreciated.

At this moment in time, the cheapest flight details found are here - £900. If anyone is aware of a cheaper price, by all means let me know.