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An $18,000 bounty awaits the first person to root the Galaxy S5 on Verizon and AT&T

Published May 28th, 2014 3:09PM EDT
Galaxy S5 Root Bounty
Image: Zach Epstein, BGR

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Six weeks after the official launch of the Galaxy S5, the mobile community still hasn’t managed to root the Verizon or AT&T models of the phone. Although subscribers from other carriers have been able to root their phones ever since launch day, root access has eluded subscribers of the two biggest phone carriers in the United States. The community has gotten so desperate that they’ve set up a bounty on the XDA Developers forum which currently amounts to just under $18,000 for the first person who can root the phone.

As the logical (and expected) progression from the S4, the S5 is locked down tighter than a drum – and the consensus on this device is that root would be worthy of higher accolades, than what root and unlocked bootloaders would have garnished in past Galaxy devices,” writes forum user Demiurge7.

“I would like to personally offer a $500 bounty to the first person able to find or create a method, exploit, or unlock that allows us to fully root and provide the necessary steps for rooting the Verizon (and now, ATT) Galaxy S5 here on XDA.”

Other interested users were quick to jump on board, pledging anywhere from $10 to $4000 to the growing bounty. If you think you’ve got the chops to infiltrate the most secure Samsung smartphone to date, you can read the requirements for claiming the bounty at the source link below.

Jacob Siegal
Jacob Siegal Associate Editor

Jacob Siegal is Associate Editor at BGR, having joined the news team in 2013. He has over a decade of professional writing and editing experience, and helps to lead our technology and entertainment product launch and movie release coverage.