"Tampers with the data" is functionally equivalent to sending me something different. There's not requirement that it looks like what I requested at all, and as long as it will execute when double-clicked, it'll do the trick.

We're already talking about running arbitrary code on a machine, compiled versus interpreted is irrelevant. And I think you have forgotten that a script with the appropriate hash-bang and file permissions is indistinguishable to most users from a compiled executable.