The desire to obtain an unconditionally secure bit commitment protocol in quantum cryptography was expressed for the first time thirteen years ago. Bit commitment is sufficient in quantum cryptography to realize a variety of applications with unconditional security. In 1993, a quantum bit commitment protocol was proposed together with a security proof. However, a basic flaw in the protocol was discovered by Mayers in 1995 and subsequently by Lo and Chau. Later the result was generalized by Mayers who showed that unconditionally secure bit commitment is impossible. A brief review on quantum bit commitment which focuses on the general impossibility theorem and on recent attempts to bypass this result is provided.
In a secure bit commitment protocol involving only classical physics, A commits either a
0 or a
1 to B. If quantum information is used in the protocol, A may be able to commit a state of the form $\ensuremath{\alpha}|0〉+\ensuremath{\beta}|1〉.$ If so, she can also commit mixed states in which the committed bit is entangled with other quantum states under her control. We introduce here a quantum cryptographic primitive, bit commitment with a certificate of classicality (BCCC), which differs from standard bit commitment in that it guarantees that the committed state has a fixed classical value. We show that no unconditionally secure BCCC protocol based on special relativity and quantum theory exists. We also propose complete definitions of security for quantum and relativistic bit commitment.