“The Godfather”, the user handle of a Silk Road user, claims to have started up a new Silk Road website. He has also assumed the handle of the previous owner, Dread Pirate Roberts.

As in the movie “Princess Bride”, The Godfather is treating Dread Pirate Roberts is a title and not an identity. He said as much in interview with Mashable.

“The Dread Pirate Roberts is more a title than a name The Dread Pirate Roberts is more a title than a name. It may be passed from person to person as each must step into the role, whether voluntarily or out of necessity.”

The new site is almost identical in appearance to the original Silk Road. Since going live on Wednesday nothing illegal has been traded. To use the site you must be invited. The fees are the same as before, 4% to 8% for each transaction. Once again the site is only accessible thru Tor and uses Bitcoin. This time around there is s PGP-enabled two-step authentication, and other security measures are in the works.

In spite of what appears to be a real effort to restart Silk Road, the identity of The Godfather could have been assumed by law enforcement to create a sting for capturing users. I’ll wait and see before using the reboot.