(ICE) A contrived acronym coined by Usenetter Tom Maddox and popularised by William Gibson's cyberpunk SF novels. Security software (in Gibson's novels, software that responds to intrusion by attempting to literally kill the intruder). Also, "icebreaker": a program designed for cracking security on a system.
Neither term is in serious use yet as of mid-1993, but many hackers find the metaphor attractive, and each may develop a denotation in the future.
(08 Feb 1995)