It can, though it's not likely. The kernel only uses free ports even in the ephemeral range, so if an application binds to something in the ephemeral range fir

It can, though it's not likely. The kernel only uses free ports even in the ephemeral range, so if an application binds to something in the ephemeral range first, then the kernel just won't pick it for new connections. You've effectively removed one port out of tens of thousands. You may be in trouble if the kernel happened to choose an ephemeral port for an outbound connection and then an application tried to bind to it for receiving new connections.