A VR researcher claims to have discovered a successful jailbreak of Oculus Quest 2 that gained root access to the device, says the XR Safety Initiative (XRSI).
XRSI is an organization dedicated to making spatial computing inclusive and secure as it grows in importance. Yesterday, founder Kavya Pearlman announced that a “researcher from the XR community” had obtained root access to Facebook’s new standalone headset. XRSI claims to have validated this for itself as well, although we don’t need to see evidence for ourselves just yet.
Oculus Quest 2 jailbreak may be detected
Commonly known as jailbreaking, the process of gaining root access is to navigate around certain user permissions and agreements that the manufacturer of a device might otherwise enforce. In the case of Quest 2, for example, Facebook requires users to have a Facebook account in order to even access the headset’s core functions. You can side-load content on the device by entering Developer Mode, but only after you’ve linked this account and agreed to the terms of use.
Gaining root access to Quest 2 could allow users to access the standalone headset without a Facebook account, although of course they won’t have access to the Oculus store and other features. This is a particularly interesting case for Quest 2 as users with locked Facebook accounts will not be able to access the device at all, even though Facebook is working individually with customers to resolve these issues whenever possible.
While this claim is legitimate, we don’t know how Facebook could react if it is exposed again. XRSI is in the process of protecting people who discovered this jailbreak as Facebook may attempt to take legal action against this movement. It is also possible for the company to simply update the headset to block any exploits it exposes.
Don’t expect to learn more about the discovery and how others might use it until this process is complete. Recently, WebXR developer Robert Long offered a $ 5,000 reward for jailbreaking Quest 2, a bounty that Palmer Luckey, inventor of the Oculus Rift, claimed would fulfill. Long says he’s still determined to deliver the bounty but has postponed a crowdfunding campaign.
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