<p>Microsoft has detailed a three-pronged plan to encrypt customer data, improve transparency and fight harder in the courts not to have to hand over your data. The new plan is designed to restore customer trust after revelations of government snooping.</p><p>Microsoft has been stung into action by in the wake of documents leaked by former National Security Agency sysadmin Edward Snowden that the NSA and GCHQ had tapped into cables and intercepted sensitive network traffic running between its data centres.</p><p>According to the leaks, Microsoft's Hotmail, Windows Live Messenger and Passport services were scanned by software called Monkey Puzzle, cooked up by hacker squads at GCHQ, as reported in a recent Washington Post piece.</p><p>The leak came a month after leaks emerged that alleged the NSA was tapping Google and Yahoo!'s data centre interlinks. Two Google engineers then ripped into the NSA's Project MUSCULAR, posting sweary posts on Google + denouncing the so-called tactic. Brad Smith, Microsoft's general counsel, described similar allegations in rather more measured term as "disturbing" and a potentially constitutional breach, if verified.A foreign affair...</p><p><a href="http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/12/05/ms_encryption_plans/">Keep reading...</a></p>