That does something entirely different; see Documentation/networking/ip-sysctl.txt (online version at https://www.kernel.org/doc/Documentation/networking/ip-sysct...). ip_local_port_range sets the range of ports used as source ports for outbound connections that don't bind to a specific port.

I checked for a sysctl controlling the ability to bind to privileged ports before writing my comment. The relevant code in the kernel compares against a hardcoded #define PROT_SOCK 1024, and doesn't have any means to disable that check. See inet_bind in net/ipv4/af_inet.c .

FreeBSD has the sysctls you are looking for to control the reserved port range, allowing unprivileged users to bind (curious that Linux doesn't):

    $ sudo sysctl net.inet.ip.portrange.reservedlow=10
    net.inet.ip.portrange.reservedlow: 0 -> 10
    $ nc -vvl 1
    ^C
    $ sudo sysctl net.inet.ip.portrange.reservedlow=0 
    net.inet.ip.portrange.reservedlow: 10 -> 0
    $ nc -vvl 1
    nc: Permission denied