I think it depends more on execution than anything else, really. As it is right now, it's mostly a MacGuffin, so it is fine no matter what it is. If it becomes central to the story, that might change.
That said, Whiterose has already implied that it "works" to some degree, she says that Edward was pivotal for some of the earlier successes with the project. So, here's my (current) pet theory on what it is:
When she said she "hacks time", she's actually playing it straight, not being cheeky about punctuality and having a really tightly scheduled life. In what was most likely an attempt to prevent her lover's death, she found a way to hack time, and I'm guessing she's doing so using quantum mechanics.
One of the previous episodes showed a board scribbled with a bunch of equations and some diagrams, and a lot of it had to do with quantum probability. There's this really fringe quantum mechanics theory that posits that quantum effects might be able to violate causality, effectively sending information backwards and/or forwards in time. Entangled particles can synchronize their states through space instantaneously regardless of distance, for instance - and maybe they can do so through time as well.
Idea here is that maybe she found a way to entangle particles with those in the past. Change a state here, nudge a probability there and boom, change an event in the past. Changes butterfly effect through time. Manipulating time without time travel.
That test Angela went through? What if they changed a bunch of stuff in the past and are testing if they got the results they were expecting?
