yashsingh1/xdaforums huggingface dataset:
[Verizon Galaxy S 5 General] Alarand:
ATT and Verizon requested (and likely payed a lot of money to) samsung for the bootloaders be locked to deny root / anything that isn't approved by the carriers.

Samsung could undoubtedly unlock the phones however they're likely contractually obliged via verizon and att specifically not to do so.

Att doesn't really have an excuse other than they're looking after their bottom line. After several chats with ATT reps I was literally recommended to go buy the phone from t-mobile. If that's not the epitome of terrible customer service I don't know what is.

Verizon's excuse is the developer edition which they don't even sell on their own website, at least they provide an option though.

Samsung makes the phones of course but they certainly didn't make this locked/unlocked decision by their own volition

This is 100% on the carriers and any blame towards samsung is misguided unfortunately.
[Verizon Galaxy S 5 General] KaM1KaZ3:
I gave verizon a call they told me they cant give out any info but in your contract it stats that you have your rights for information
[Verizon Galaxy S 5 General] Razzzzer:
actually isn't this the "best" of customer service... actually directing you to a competitor that provides what you want in a device that they themselves do not provide? lol
[Verizon Galaxy S 5 General] wuyongzheng:
At which step does it stop working? Odin or boot?
[Verizon Galaxy S 5 General] :
What about the n_tty_write bug?

We could get it to execute a kexec for a rooted kernel, or am I speaking nonsense?

Energized from SM-G900V
[Verizon Galaxy S 5 General] kuronosan:
People are working on it.
[Verizon Galaxy S 5 General] kprice8:
[MENTION=4684318]FlyinLulz[/MENTION]

Check out the BOUNTY Root thread. Progress has been being shared there.
[Verizon Galaxy S 5 General] Dennisg34:
Yeah this thread seems pointless. I see the same stuff on both threads but, oh well.
[Verizon Galaxy S 5 General] kprice8:
Perhaps now, since the work has been progressing on the other thread, but initially I believe this thread was introduced to keep the BOUNTY thread clean of off-topicness or something. Who knows anymore.. It seems like the course of the threads went out the door with the mass amount of people who joined for S5 root.
[Verizon Galaxy S 5 General] RockyCJC:
Too many threads that on the surface appear to have a different meaning but all lead to the same goal....obtaining root. Ultimately, the thread with the most up to date news and most activity will get more important information.

I also think that the bounty thread is the only one that was not shut down for going off track so it is the one more people ran too when they had no other alternative. Its kind of like the news. Whomever scoops the story first gets their paper sold.

But ultimately, if I were a Dev I would want my progress in the bounty thread because if I did obtain root I would want the money. That is a nice chunk of change if people actually pay up.
[Verizon Galaxy S 5 General] Alarand:
They wittingly locked it and refuse to unlock it due to so called safety reasons however they're perfectly fine telling you to go get an unlocked phone from t-mobile and use it on their network.

-The point I'm making is ATT doesn't respect their customers enough to actually provide assistance with the products you buy from them.

In essence I got "oh yeah you're a fool for buying the phone from our company to use on our network the smart people buy the phone from a different carrier and use it on our network" no less from the people who are supposed to be representing everything good about ATT, wanting you to continue using them as a carrier etc.

ATT knows their customers want to be able to have the functionality expected from a 650$ phone yet the only seeming explanation to deny this right is that they're trying to push phones that they have complete control over, most likely for bloatware advertising purposes.

Good customer service would be: "Okay, you need your phone unlocking? If you acknowledge the risks you can download this file and remove the inherent restrictions" more nonsense warnings likely included but yeah... Or even offer an option to pay for an unlock. When you buy an expensive product from a company and it turns out to be an instrument of bloated advertising for the company you purchased it from, I don't see how at least some anger isn't justified.

They are literally making money, after the fact of you purchasing the phone with the free advertising you carry around unwittingly. And as far as I can tell, I'm not getting any compensation from that, I'm actually making att money in a sense.

They ignore the demands of the customer base in order to make money in a way that disregards any assistance with customers that could hurt their bottom line

I'm sick of these freedom touting american companies getting away with such blatant pathetic hypocrisy in the name of increasing their already staggering amounts of wealth.

There's no doubt in my mind i'm dropping att when my contract is over unless they start to show some respect to their customers and a legitimate appreciation of the value of freedom in our society.
[Verizon Galaxy S 5 General] RockyCJC:
I share alarands frustration that I can't unlock my phone but I don't stick it to the carrier as hard because I have become more knowledgeable of why carriers lock phones. That said, I feel the S5 runs pretty smooth considering it is stock so I can't really complain. Since foxfi gives me the tethering the only thing I am missing from root is theming and aosp and there are apps to do some of that.

But with that response in mind, I think rants about the carriers and Samsung are best left for another thread as they offer no further ideas to get to the end goal of rooting out phones.
[Verizon Galaxy S 5 General] Alarand:
The problem isn't with whatever general carrier you have it's specifically with ATT and Verizon.

However, you're right man. Mods feel free to delete it. Definitely inappropriate rant in this thread and I apologize, just had to get it off my chest.

Partially posted it because I see a lot of people in this thread arguing over who's behind the decision of locking and it's simply not samsung.

--- In all honesty I'm just frustrated considering I want nothing more than to help here but whenever I ask where I could go to to begin getting a grasp of android systems and how to exploit to achieve root I get ridiculed with insults that seem as though they're coming from 11 year olds.

ATT without a doubt has a method for unlocking the bootloader and it rustles my jimmies like no other that I can't just go fight them to the death for it in a colosseum lol :mad:

edit: also it tickles me that the two biggest 'MURICAN cell providers are the only ones to lock it down, land of the free, home of the brave.
[Verizon Galaxy S 5 General] Dennisg34:
Why wait? T mobile will buy out your contract
[Verizon Galaxy S 5 General] Alarand:
Sorry I don't mean to offtopic more but do you know much about the offer?

I'm pretty poor and I'm on a family plan, they signed me up for the att "next" program but I'm pretty sure theres a 14 day return period

Mind pming me if you think you could help? so that we're not rustling these hardcore ontopic-ers

Any and all help is vastly appreciated :)
[Verizon Galaxy S 5 General] miked63017:
Is there an odin file with the locked bootloader included floating around anywhere? I found one that's downloading now but not sure if its for the dev edition or the locked one.
[Verizon Galaxy S 5 General] Russ77:
if you bought a device on ATT or VZW with a known locked boot loader and expected anything less from them, the blame lies fully with the buyer.

they lock these phones for several reasons. warranty and security. no corporation or government entity with secure email would ever entertain a device with an unlocked boot loader. period.
[Verizon Galaxy S 5 General] BigBot96:
VRU1ANCG/ALL_VZW_G900VVRU1ANCG_G900VVZW1ANCG_964333_REV00_user_low_ship_MULTI_CERT.tar.7z

Just extract the md5 from the 7z
[Verizon Galaxy S 5 General] jal3223:
I don't believe this is possible because the app would have to already have root access to make any changes to the system. This is a good thing because it limits the permissions of the apps keeping our data safe from malicious threats. The limitation is also the reason that viruses are so rare in android.
[Verizon Galaxy S 5 General] cyberace1985:
i believe jcase said this was no bueno in the main root thread you didn't search hard enough
[Verizon Galaxy S 5 General] eragon5779:
I saw his post but wasn't sure. I know there are hacked play stores, that's why I asked.

Sent from my white SM G900V on XDA Premium 4
[Verizon Galaxy S 5 General] starfall42:
General Info on Rooting

Since there seems to be a lot of confusion about what rooting Android takes, I thought I'd answer a few FAQs.

Rooting is all about breaking a chain of trust. The tablet is designed to never run any code as root that does not have a digital signature by Samsung (or an authorized partner). When installing or upgrading Android on the tablet, it checks that it was digitally signed by Samsung before installing it. (This is the "locked bootloader". Unlocked bootloaders may warn you, but will let you install unsigned code.)

Programs that run as root are started from scripts that you have to have root to modify. Programs that transition from a non-root user to a root user (SUID [set user id] root) are designed to not allow you to do anything that would enable you to get root permanently.

Updates to system apps (like the Play store) have to have the correct digital signature, or they'll be rejected.

You can't fake the signature. Maybe the NSA can, but you can't. You can't modify any signed file without breaking the signature -- that's the whole point. If you actually have found a way around it, you're going to be very famous.

Rooting relies on oversights. For example, my old Droid X had a program that would copy files as root but could be run by any user. You just used it to replace some system files and you're done. The newer exploits are much more sophisticated, but the general principle is to get an existing root program to run one of yours, or get it to do something on your behalf that lets you run your own root program.

Once you have obtained root by some method, you install Superuser or Super SU. They provide a program called "su" (super user) that lets you or apps get root privileges. This creates a problem because you don't want any random app to just run su and take over your phone. These SU apps only grant SU after presenting you the option to reject it. This is just a security measure. You could create a SUID program that wouldn't ask, but it would let anything on your phone do anything.

You have to have root before installing Super SU because setting the SUID root flag requires root -- catch 22. Super SU is just to provide persistent root access and to manage it.

Any other questions or corrections are welcome.
[Verizon Galaxy S 5 General] eragon5779:
What about CVE-2014-0038?

EDIT: Never mind, it won't work on arm.

Sent from my white SM G900V on XDA Premium 4
[Verizon Galaxy S 5 General] elliwigy:
lol its more of a modification of the original apk thats installed on the phone.. you dont need root to install an apk it just wont give you root access or custom recovery etc.
[Verizon Galaxy S 5 General] TechX1991:
I've tried many many ways

I've tried forceful adb push, the update.zip methods, and mod ding other files

Just so people know
[Verizon Galaxy S 5 General] Franzie3:
Silly thought....

These security updates...Has anyone checked what exactly they include? Is it possible that the security updates are patching known vulnerabilities and exploits on top of basic additions to KNOX etc etc. Meaning, can we try and find out what the changelog of these updates were to see if anything leads to a way to find a way for people who have not accepted any of the security updates?
[Verizon Galaxy S 5 General] Dennisg34:
This was somewhat explained in the main bounty thread, no they this didn't patch any exploits
[Verizon Galaxy S 5 General] Rotordroid:
Yes, it is enforced on VZW.
[Verizon Galaxy S 5 General] phrozenwire:
Idea for Rooting

Guys,

Am not a developer or a programmer. But just a thought that came to mind. Verizon has released the Developer Edition for the S5. There is a thread which is active for successful root and installation of Recovery on the Developer Edition. Since both the devices are identical. Is there anyway that we can put the complete image from the Developer Edition phone over to the normal VZW S5 and use the root method provided. I am looking at putting the entire image using Odin over to the phone just like restoration of the factory image but in this case use the developer edition image. Is it feasible ?
[Verizon Galaxy S 5 General] Dennisg34:
ughh, please read, this has been asked about 100 times now. No, it does not work like that, sorry.
[Verizon Galaxy S 5 General] Franzie3:
If it was that easy we all would be rooted and unlocked and there would never of been a bounty. Not trying to be rude, but next time try and read through the forums first. You asked the question here and in the Bounty thread and while its perfectly fine. it's been stated more times then i have fingers and toes. At this point i think the only way we will get this is to let exploits be found by top end security experts and let them try. Any and all work that is being done is on a "shhhhh" basis at the moment. Just be patient and read the threads daily for updates. You'll learn a lot more.

Again not trying to be rude, just helpful
[Verizon Galaxy S 5 General] king_of_fools:
Ok, so I'm sure someone will bite my head off for this and tell me it doesn't work this way but I figured I'd toss this out there. I was installing the certificate for foxfi and noticed the listing of the factory installed certificates, which include a long list of root certificate authority entries for a large number of companies and apps. I saw someone on page 13 of this thread in this post which reflects my thoughts. Could we possibly use the root access for one of these certifications to write the files that we need. I know this is an obvious thought/question but I read through most of the rooting threads on here and no one has mentioned this list (settings>security>trusted credentials). The list is very extensive and includes partners like Visa and Microsoft, and even Equifax, which is seems bizarre for factory installed stuff. I don't know what a lot of them are, but I'm wondering if perhaps someone with a bit more knowledge than myself might know what these programs are and if we could perhaps make an altered version of the apk's these certificates service and use it.

that's it, I'm aware it probably is nothing that will help but I just haven't seen it mentioned so I thought I would, just in case.

K

O

F
[Verizon Galaxy S 5 General] kuronosan:
They would still need to be signed.
[Verizon Galaxy S 5 General] tydiamond11:
What does it take to copy a signed thing and make the other signed?
[Verizon Galaxy S 5 General] ks3rv3rg:
You need to have the original signature. Which you'll never have, in a reasonable amount of time.
[Verizon Galaxy S 5 General] tydiamond11:
Well maybe someday lol
[Verizon Galaxy S 5 General] spuniun:
No, not someday. Sometime did the math in one of the threads and it would take longer than the expected remaining life of our planet to brute force the signing keys. It won't happen and we must resign ourselves to waiting for a potential exploit to surface, a possibility that may never come honestly.
[Verizon Galaxy S 5 General] cyberace1985:
the negativity of not finding an exploit is rather amusing.... Until the day linux code writes itself and then also double checks itself is the day humans cant/wont find an error in the code.... humans are quite fallible and its more of a matter of when and not if. But you continue to be a Debby Downer on not finding root.
[Verizon Galaxy S 5 General] miked63017:
I do agree with you, but in the point they are making about brute forcing signatures they are right. The only possible way is if someone is holding out and has a quantum computer in their basement:)

On a different note, I have a question. Can /data/local/tmp be written to using adb push on your phones?

I returned my sprint gs5 to stock so I can try out a few things, and mine can. Wanted to make sure the same is true for VZW phones before I use that as a building block. I got some intersting output from a few binaries placed there, and have gotten adbd to hang and consume lots of memory. It could be nothing, it could be something. Either way if you guys can't write there it will be pointless for me to continue looking there, please let me know.
[Verizon Galaxy S 5 General] jakeprogrammer:
I just tested it and was able to write a text file to /data/local/tmp
[Verizon Galaxy S 5 General] kuronosan:
Yes, I can.
[Verizon Galaxy S 5 General] Spedkiller:
Reposting this here since it might of been overlooked in the bounty thread. Anyone with some knowledge want to look into it?

The other day during my lurking I spotted a thread in one of the Galaxy S5 forums that mentioned a possible place to look with the ATT version. It was regarding the recent update which contains the lookout security app, apparently one of the apps permissions is for elevated privileges (root I believe). (I would link to thread, but I can't find it now)

I know it only would work for one the desired models, but at least it is somewhere to look. I would also hope that a security app is secure enough to not allow exploits, but hey stranger and more stupid things have been done. Any thoughts on this?
[Verizon Galaxy S 5 General] spuniun:
I never said anything about finding an exploit. I was talking about hashing Samsung's private keys which is, for all intents and purposes, impossible so your suggestion was pointless. I have never indicated that an exploit could not be found, but you can call me Debbie if you want to.
[Verizon Galaxy S 5 General] eragon5779:
Please avoid arguing. Otherwise this thread might get closed again.

Sent from my white SM G900V on XDA Premium 4
[Verizon Galaxy S 5 General] jcase:
These are for ssl, and have nothing to do with "root" user.
[Verizon Galaxy S 5 General] ballisticevo:
jcase I have no idea how you have been so patient with some of these users on the forum. Sadly i decided I couldn't live without root any longer and traded my S5 for a M8 yesterday. I love the M8 however the camera does have some short comings as I expected.

BTW thanks for root on the M8 ;)
[Verizon Galaxy S 5 General] aldread:
I'm sure this has been posted before, and I'm just rewording an earlier suggestion, but I'll ask anyway. Could a developer submit an app to the app store (game, productivity, etc.), which would contain Trojan Horse code that could be activated after it was installed?
[Verizon Galaxy S 5 General] kuronosan:
No. That's the very thing that the security measures are there to prevent.
[Verizon Galaxy S 5 General] jcase:
The correct answer here is, yes absolutely. Google actively tries to detect and prevent this, and many AV companies monitor new app listings and installations.

The problem here, this "trojan code" would still run with the same permissions we could get from any app, without an exploit. This has no relation to gaining root, nor would it help us. No extra benefits than what sideloading would give us.
[Verizon Galaxy S 5 General] kuronosan:
Well, what I meant was no, it wouldn't be helpful. Not really no, it couldn't be done.

How about causing a stack or buffer overflow using the stock camera app as an entry point?

I know Samsung has had issues with the camera failing (and I recently had one, only I was able to resolve it) and concerns were raised that it could be left vulnerable.
[Verizon Galaxy S 5 General] kuronosan:
Is this useful at all?
[Verizon Galaxy S 5 General] jcase:
Not likely in this case
[Verizon Galaxy S 5 General] spuniun:
Not without the key it was signed with.
[Verizon Galaxy S 5 General] miked63017:
Could somebody try this http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?p=52970334
[Verizon Galaxy S 5 General] natalic:
Try what? flashing with odin? Already tried...its the reason we need root lol.
[Verizon Galaxy S 5 General] miked63017:
Root doesn't allow you to flash with odin, many times flashing an odun file provides root. From everything I've read usually the bootloader doesn't verify the system partitiin only boot and bootloaders, so it seemed worth a shot to flash only /system via odun. But obviously it didn't work, so now we know in this case the bootloader verifies system.
[Verizon Galaxy S 5 General] kuronosan:
It doesn't work because the bootchain verifies anything flashed through Odin.
[Verizon Galaxy S 5 General] jakeprogrammer:
Does anyone know if this will work? thetechbulletin.com/how-to-root-samsung-galaxy-s5-sm-g900v-verizon-3509/

I found that while looking up some information about the Verizon S5.

Sorry for that not being linked, I haven't met the 10 post minimum.
[Verizon Galaxy S 5 General] DR4LUC0N:
Maybe there's a way to fake out the system during boot, (excuse me I don't have my S5 yet) but I know on my S3 it says "Samsung" really fast, obviously the system hasn't even loaded(I see this like the bios of Android, if we can interrupt it during that time maybe we can inject a packet of data before any verification process happens(just a thought).
[Verizon Galaxy S 5 General] d0ppler302:
I could see that coming into play possibly. I know back in the day when I had an HTC Droid Incredible they used what they were calling a "race exploit" basically pushing a file before certain things loaded but within a small window of time. Don't know if that is even a posibility anymore.
[Verizon Galaxy S 5 General] kilroy1stcav:
Anyone think this is real? http://www.thetechbulletin.com/how-to-root-samsung-galaxy-s5-sm-g900v-verizon-3509/
[Verizon Galaxy S 5 General] Dennisg34:
Currently downloading...probably not, but at this point idc
[Verizon Galaxy S 5 General] kilroy1stcav:
I would try it, but my pc fried awhile back and all I have is a Mac I inherited when my dad passed and I see this is for pc's only! :'(
[Verizon Galaxy S 5 General] Dennisg34:
File is huge, 1.8GB almost halfway there! lol weird thing is, which is making me even more skeptical, is that when we used Odin for the S4, we had to flash a separate temp kernel and then the .tar file...this is just a file, so I'm not sure if they've upgraded this type of Odin root process?
[Verizon Galaxy S 5 General] kilroy1stcav:
I am just not sure, been trying to read the forum over there and can't find anything confirming it there, so....? Plus I'm not a Mac guy, but that's all I have, so I have so I have to learn, and this my first Samsung phone, so I am a total newby! Lol
[Verizon Galaxy S 5 General] Nsane457:
The site nasirtech.blogspot.com/2014/04/g900vvru1ancg-android-442-kitkat.html (can't post html links yet) seems to link to the firmware. It says

.and

Skeptical. Possibly the same stock vz fw in there now but worth a shot, I guess.
[Verizon Galaxy S 5 General] Dennisg34:
yeah unfortunately, nope:( got a pass, but still no root
[Verizon Galaxy S 5 General] Walter.White:
Like I said it's a click bait article and nothing more.

That's just a stock FW someone extracted using Kies.
[Verizon Galaxy S 5 General] Dennisg34:
yeah i realized that once i did some more research, oh well, made me feel all giddy inside being able to friggen Odin something.. haha
[Verizon Galaxy S 5 General] kprice8:
Giggity Giggity Giddy? lol
[Verizon Galaxy S 5 General] DR4LUC0N:
Can we make a virus for Android and infect our phones to exploit something?