[ewpratten]

There's approx 4 generations of "Magic".

Gen 1, 1a, 3 and 4 all use special commands to unlock and edit block 0.

Gen 2 treats block 0 as always being r/w. This allows Android phones to directly write to it (but also makes it possible to lock the card).

In terms of pm3 commands, "auto" tries everything. You might also want to use "lf search" or "hf search" to only try one of your antennas and not the other.

The actual Magic part isn't really important here, since my phone doesn't even care about block 0. It just makes it easier to read and wipe the card when you have the extra command set at your disposal.

[stavros]

This is great, thanks! Do you know of any resource to learn more about Mifare cards? Is "beginning NFC" that you linked me to a good general resource?

[ewpratten]

All my knowledge is trial & error.

I've found the people over in the DT forum are pretty helpful with the cloning and usage aspect of things: https://forum.dangerousthings.com

Additionally, Iceman's Discord people has tons of smart people: https://discord.com/invite/iceman

[stavros]

Thank you!