As Bradley Manning approaches his eight-hundredth day in military jail for allegedly distributing sensitive military files to WikiLeaks, a team of researchers say that same trove of data can help determine when and where violence will erupt next.

To the US Army, Private First Class Manning is a war criminal. If convicted on the charge of aiding the enemy, the 24-year-old soldier could see the rest of his life unravel from behind the bars of a darkened, desolate jail cell. For more than two years he has been held under conditions considered torturous by a special rapporteur for the United Nations and, if found guilty on the charge of aiding the enemy, could end up crammed in a small cell for life.