Dear Linux, Privileged Ports Must Die
This article is nonsense.  Privileged ports are a security feature.  They have literally nothing to do with mainframes.  On multi-user systems, they're incredibly important because they give external clients confidence that the services provided on them are authorized by the system and not just by any user -- some of whom may not be as trustworthy as others.  Most systems in this era of cheap hardware are single user, BUT NOT ALL SYSTEMS.  It's fine for Windows and Mac OS to do without them and it's fine to configure your own Linux system to disable them if that's what you want, but it's completely insane to argue that they're a security flaw because some people work around them using insecure practices.  There are plenty of secure ways to work around them, most obviously by USING A NON-PRIVILEGED PORT.  Start your service on port 8080, for example, and give out a URL like <a href="http://example.com:8080/path" rel="nofollow">http://example.com:8080/path</a>.  It's really that simple.  Take the time to understand the actual purpose of a feature before urging others to abolish it.