  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.
