I would like to know the meaning of various markings on a US visa.
This questions comes in three parts:

1. See the below link:

http://americanradioworks.publicradio.org/features/911/images/atta.jpg
(odd example, I know, but it came up on Google Images)

Underneath the photo of the visa, there are two asterisks "**". Some
visas only have one asterisk under the photo, and others have no
asterisk at all. I would like to know the meaning of these asterisks.
What does none mean, what does one mean, and what does two mean?

2. Under the Nationality field, there is a number "1011". What does
this number mean? In other cases, the numbers is "1010". What does
this mean? Are there any other numbers and if so what is their
meaning?

3. Below visa type, there is a bold letter R. What is the meaning of
this letter R? Are there any other types of letters that come here and
if so what is their meaning? I am not talking about the B1/B2 (I know
this is the visa class).

I would like an answer that includes some references to an
authoritative source, or at least a site that is reasonably
trustworthy.

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Request for Question Clarification by hummer-ga on 31 Jul 2006 07:24 PDT

Hi aliebrahim,

Beyond any shadow of a doubt, I can provide the answer to your third
question, "What is the meaning of this letter R?", backed up by an
authoritative source.

I would like to post my "R" answer, but obviously it will only answer
1/3 of your posted question, along with a reasonable educated guess
for the asterisks. It's up to you how you would like to proceed but
one idea would be to lower the price of this question and note in a
clarification that you'd like me to post the answer that I have. 
Then, you could open one or two new questions for the two other parts.

I'll look forward to hearing your thoughts,
hummer

After spending several hours researching your question, I was only
able to verify the meaning of the "R".

R - Religious Workers

http://www.esana.org/Projects/Esa_Link/US%20Visas.pdf

I hope that helps.

Best regards,
Rainbow

I'm afraid that the "R" you see on the visa does not mean Religious
Worker. B1/B2 is the class of the visa, which denotes a regular
visitor. Had the "R" been in place of the B1/B2 then you would be
correct, but the "R" marking in this case does not denote the visa
class. I have seen this "R" marking on other visas as well, including
F1 student visas as well.

Thanks for trying, though.