I have successfully hitchhiked in western Europe, mostly France. It can take time to find a ride, but I (young middle class white male, clean shaven) was always picked up by ordinary folks just happy to help out. The trickiest part is finding a spot where people have the time to see you and slow down- in my experience, just before highway tolls is best.
The article outlines some (current) limitations in the car's judgement when evaluating the dangerosity of an object ahead. If/when this becomes mainstream, how long until pranksters and terrorists find ways to leverage limitations and cause accidents?
Does anyone actually use a standing desk daily? I get antsy and uncomfortable standing after just a few minutes. How people manage to get real work done with a setup like this is a complete mystery to me.
As a non-citizen, I would not risk being labelled uncooperative by the border agents. Just because they cannot compell you to surrender your passphrase doesn't mean they couldn't hold it against you in the future (longer visa processing times, extra background checks).
As suggested in the pdf, a wiser approach is cross the border with an immaculate system and download your data afterwards.