Anonymous marketplace the Silk Road, that traded in drugs and other illegal goods, is back online, after being closed by the FBI. The first version of Silk Road was shut down by the FBI in October and its alleged administrator arrested but it was always expected to re-surface sooner or later.

The new administrator of the revived site has adopted the same handle as the previous operator - Dread Pirate Roberts. That was the handle of Ross Ulbricht who the FBI thinks was the mastermind behind the original site. The twitter feed for Dread Pirate Roberts reads: "#SilkRoad has lift-off". The new homepage reads "This Hidden Site Has Risen Again", parodying the US Department of Justice notice, which read "the hidden site has been seized".

The site appears to be run by the same folks that were running it before which makes the FBI’s moves, and the arrest of Ulbricht seem a little silly. If Ulbricht was the leader then how is it able to run in exactly the same way without him? The Silk Road banked over $1.3bn two years from taking a percentage of sales and it was a big business.